Social Media and Entertainment: Truly Made for Each Other

What do Psy, Varun Agarwal and Dhanush have in common?

Psy’s Gangnam Style and Dhanush’s Kolaveri Di went viral on the social media and set the world tapping its foot to its rhythm.  Varun Agarwal’s blog and Facebook posts were compiled to make the book, How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-founded a Million Dollar Company. These entertainers owe their success in the entertainment industry entirely to social media. It brought them unprecedented fame and success.

Social media in itself is considered as the biggest entertainer. But social media’s power to influence and drive the entertainment industry is even bigger. The relationship between entertainment and social media and also with individuals consuming the two is quite strong. In fact, statistics reveal that while watching TV, 83% of people surf the web, 79% visit Facebook and 41% tweet about the show that they are watching.

People go to watch movies based on the reviews in the social media, reality shows are the topic of discussion on Facebook, photos from a rock concert are shared and liked all over the social media and sporting events are the hottest  topics on Twitter.

Social Media and Entertainment in India:

Today, more and more individuals rely on social media for deciding whether or not to watch movies. Knowing this well, directors and production houses are now using social media to promote their movies and generate a positive buzz around it through exceptional engagement ideas and other marketing strategies.

In India, Bollywood and Cricket are two of the biggest entertainment forces. For a nation that simply swoons over its celebrities and yearns to get every little detail of their personal and professional life, the social media was a custom made solution. The celebrities too have made the best use of social media. Most of the leading actors and cricketers are active on Twitter and Facebook and they are among the most highly followed people on social media. It has brought the celebrities and fans closer to each other like never before. What is even more interesting is the active and engaging presence of distributing companies, directors, scriptwriters, lyricists etc on social media. Even TV stars are not far behind in sharing news and photos from their shows.

So, at a time when movie-goers are turning real-time critics by tweeting reviews, wannabe authors are writing their manuscripts as status updates and musicians and theater artists using Pinterest and YouTube to promote their works, we know for sure that social media and entertainment are truly made for each other.