Charlie Sheen Sets Guinness Record

Charlie Sheen is either a marketing gienius, or a phyco that stumbled into a social media gold mine… probably a little of both…

“Sheen gained 1 million Twitter followers in just 25 hours and 17 minutes. That’s record time according to Guinness World Records. It’s the first time Guinness
has kept tabs on the category.”
Read More…

Social media popularity can mean bigger paycheck for athletes

Did the interesting, entertaining, sometimes cutting edge Tweets by “Double D” (Darnell Dockett) play a factor in his new $48 million contract extension? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, he has used Twitter account well as a communication platform…

USA Today: Thanks to a compensation formula introduced by her HuckNRoll.com adventure sports team, Rusch can add her social media skills as a source of income.

“Our fans are those hundreds of thousands of people who live for the two weeks a year when they can go skiing or ride their mountain bikes in the real mountains,” says Jon Atencio, the “team wrangler ” for the HuckNRoll squad. “We have skiers, snowboarders, trail runners and bikers. Our athletes have to do more than be at the top of the podium, we want genuine people who care enough to create conversations with their fans through social media.”

Under the HuckNRoll.com plan, its top athletes get a salary that is augmented by payments for their skill at getting fans to read their media offerings and also make purchases from the HuckNRoll.com retail website.

“My career is absolutely a business and I have a degree in marketing,” says Rusch, who is also sponsored by Specialized Bicycles. “There is more to my job than just training and racing. I am constantly looking for opportunities for myself and my sponsors to increase exposure and value.”
Read more at: usatoday.com

NFL Warming up to Social Media

Double D has had some interesting, and crazy funny tweets this off season.

AP: The NFL said Monday it will allow players to use social media networks this season, but not during games. Players, coaches and football operations personnel can use Twitter, Facebook and other social media up to 90 minutes before kickoff, and after the game following traditional media interviews.
During games, no updates will be permitted by the individual himself or anyone representing him on his personal Twitter, Facebook or any other social media account, the league said.
The use of social media by NFL game officials and officiating department personnel will be prohibited at all times. The league, which has always barred play-by-play descriptions of games in progress, also extended that ban to social media platforms.
Earlier this summer, Chargers cornerback Antonio Cromartie was fined $2,500 by the team for criticizing the food service at training camp on Twitter.
The Miami Dolphins imposed restrictions on players, reporters and even spectators at their training camp, and several other teams also set up some restrictions on practice fields, including the Broncos, Patriots, Bills, Colts, Saints and Lions.
Read more at AP

Trent Reznor Raises Close to a Million for Sick Fan

Trent Reznor has been a driving force in music since he exploded on the scene in 1990. His raw emotion pours onto the stage and into the crowd. Lately, NIN has been on their fairwell tour, and it looks like they are reaching out to the Twitter public for financial support for a fan in need. Great story.

Twittering Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor opened a campaign last Wednesday to raise money for Eric De La Cruz, a Nevada Medicaid patient in need of a heart transplant. Both Nine Inch Nails and tour mates Jane’s Addiction are offering special deals for the remaining shows on their tour to fundraise for De La Cruz’s hopeful transplant.
A $300 donation will grant concert attendees access to the pre-show soundcheck and a meet-and-greet with the band, while $1,000 will get you backstage for dinner and relaxing with the band, as well as stage-side viewing for the show, autographs and pictures. For fans without tickets, a $1,200 donation comes with two tickets to the show and VIP treatment backstage. This is NIN’s final tour, so fans of the band will want to seize this opportunity.

De La Cruz was turned down from transplant lists because of the lack of transplant centers in Nevada. Reznor became aware of his situation after De La Cruz’s sister, former CNN.com news anchor Veronica De La Cruz, began a fundraising campaign on her website. The campaign is as much to raise money for Eric as it is to raise awareness of Nevada’s limited transplant opportunities, and to petition Senator Harry Reid and other Congress members for improved legislation.
Read the rest at: pastemagazine.com

Tweeting Your Way to a Job

Keep in mind, we only really have one example in this article. It’s kin of like looking at the NFL and picking one rags to riches story and forgetting about the 10′s of 1000′s of men who never got there shot. You have to be the best of the best to even be considered. One piece of advice I can give; Use social media for your enjoyment. Build your personal community. Get out of the house or office and network with the people you connect with. If making a buck from it is going to happen, then it will.

nytimes.com – “IT is my mission in life to get this job,” said Amanda Casgar, who is better known to executives at Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma County as applicant No. 505.

@WHIZ Christi Day of Southwest.
Three weeks ago Murphy-Goode began a search for a “social media whiz,” a wine enthusiast interested in moving to Healdsburg, Calif., for six months to promote the vineyard’s malbec and chardonnay on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The job — which comes with the official title “lifestyle correspondent” — pays $10,000 a month, plus free accommodations at a private home within walking distance of the tasting room. Ms. Casgar, a former magazine marketing executive, has been endorsing herself as enthusiastically as she would a bottle of petit verdot.

Already an occasional Twitterer, she increased the number of tweets she posts; they are mostly about wine. She created a Web site, “Goode Times With Amanda Casgar,” to chronicle her job quest. Like about a half-dozen other eager applicants, she has started a fan group on Facebook, buying ads for 50 cents a click to generate traffic.

Read the full article at nytimes.com.