Everybody wants to be famous; and recent trends, particularly in social media, validate the very notion that a celebrity ‘spokesperson’, or alluding to a celebrity in general, is reeling in both sales and brand loyalty. Quality branded content is aimed at engaging and building a relationship with an intended audience; celebrities, whose lifestyles the past two generations have aspired to, are the perfect platform with which companies can engage an audience and turn their products and services into objects of desire. This trend fits into the category of ‘social commerce’, which is basically the use of social networks to conduct business transactions or activities that will lead to business transactions.

Social commerce was conceived by David Biesel and Steve Rubel, to denote user-generated content on sites and include collaborative tools enabling users “to get advice from trusted individuals, find goods and services and then purchase them” – and why wouldn’t users trust a famous, rich and successful person’s opinion on what constitutes a quality product, service or brand?

Enter the sponsored tweet – and it’s exactly what you think it is; people, most commonly celebrities, are paid money to mention a product, service or brand on their twitter page in a manner that engages the said celebrity’s ‘followers’. The exact number of followers is displayed on the celebrity’s twitter page, so brands know how many millions of people that one message is going to reach. Kim Kardashian, allegedly, gets paid US$10,000 for one tweet to her 7 million followers.

Return on investment is always guaranteed with celebrities; consider certain fashion brands, where the reason they always make money, despite their over-priced merchandise, is because people see photos of celebrities wearing their designs and try to emulate the celebrity’s style and status. These fashion brands also use this to their advantage on social media pages – think of a famous fashion brand, visit their page on Facebook and you will come across countless and up-to-date photographs of celebrities using the brand’s clothes, shoes or accessories. Other brands associate their more affordable products with something similar seen on, or used by, a celebrity. Like it or not, we do live in a material world and it thrives through the celebrity culture.