By: Geoff Smith
No kiddies, I’m not talking about alcohol in the title. What am I talking about, you ask? A little (literally) lady named Tila Tequila.
As a Twitter-er (follow me, @gehoppp), I like to follow some celebrities that provide comical insights into their lives. However, I recently unleashed a whole new breed of celebrity on my Twitter-feed: Tila Tequila. Check her out (@officialtila), and you can see the sheer volume of tweets that she generates. Check the times, too: she never sleeps. Girl is tweeting at 5 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon. Her Twitter background? Robert Kennedy, John Kennedy, Malcolm X, and MLK, Jr. A modern-day prophet, she is?
Since she started tweeting in March, Tila has updated her status 8,945 times, an average of about 33 tweets a day. I’ve had twitter since November and I’ve tweeted just a tad over 1,000 times. Her follower total? 222,575 people. She is the most-friend requested person on MySpace, and she has started her own social media site at http://www.tilashotspot.buzznet.com/. She knows how to stay connected, and it has created a cult following that any celebrity would die for. While we are watching some actors/musicians slowly entering the social networking world, Tila has been going full-tilt for a long time.
Now, I know you are all wondering why I am writing about Tila. The reason? She is what every Campus Socialite/Campus Diva wants to be. In her career, the 25 year old, born Tila Nguyen, has gone from MySpace “model” to international celebrity mostly by self-promotion. She has one book published, is writing a second one (her overnight posts today were all about said book), she has been featured on the cover of any and every major men’s magazine, she even got her own TV show on MTV – A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. To boot, her TV show debuted at number 1 in its time period across all of cable in the adults 18-34 age range (I took that from Wikipedia, and I’m still not sure if it makes sense). Another fact: 6.2 million people tuned in to watch the season one finale- the most in MTV history.
Girl has quite the hustle going on. However, unlike other celebrities with huge PR teams, Tila has done this relatively solo. An immigrant from Singapore, Tila has found the “American dream” in all of its splendor. She has proved that determination and hard work does pay off in the end. Getting a spot writing for the Campus Socialite, and working in Precious Time as well, I respect what she has done to “build her brand”. She was not someone born into the limelight, she created it for herself. She flooded the market, saturated herself everywhere, and would not let it go.
More than anything, Tila is highlighting self-promotion in creating a brand. In this ever-changing digital world where we are inundated with scores of blogs and websites popping up to take your attention, her business model serves us well to investigate. Instead of waiting on word of mouth to spread, she rammed her name down our throats. In order to create a niche for yourself nowadays, regardless of the field you are studying, being able to promote yourself is critical to success. Love her or hate her, Tila is still getting attention. Personally, I’m about ready to un-follow her (I’m sick of her all over my mini-feed), but I am still compelled to write this.
So take her example and hold it close, all of you Campus Socialites trying to start a business or create a product. In order to achieve success, you have to keep the name of what you are promoting on people’s lips. You cannot settle for word of mouth to spread the word, you have to put the words into people’s mouths. In the end, it doesn’t matter if you are a somebody anymore; it matters if you can bring something to the table.
