Just like the instant rise in fame for Justin Bieber from having his video go viral on YouTube, apparently now you can also make a viral star overnight through social media.

Recently I noticed a new trending topic on the internet: #AlexFromTarget. Apparently a photo of a US Target employee named Alex was shared virally overnight from a British female teenager’s twitter and everyone else (mostly girls as well) have expressed their agreement on how handsome he appears and became a fan of him instantly. Yet, I could not help but be suspicious as to how a single photo could raise someone into online famous status right away.

Here is the photo that brought Alex into stardom:

 

The article I found explained that a marketing agency was behind this trend all along. The company called Breakr claimed that they wanted to test whether the power of fangirl demographic can be easily used to create fame on something we created that is not originally  ‘organically’ driven. They did this by not only posting Alex’s photo, but also started the conversation about him by making the first few initial posts that triggered girls globally to hail him as their new heartthrob. From here, it went into a domino effect where other girls started jumping into the conversation on twitter until the hashtag #AlexFromTarget become a new trend.

This shows that social media has the power to bring people forward towards certain topics and causes in a passionate way. So businesses could greatly benefit if they can create a viral campaign through social media if they engage with the right demographic and present themselves to these people in the right manner.

 

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/alex-from-target-a-marketing-ploy-2014-11?utm_content=bufferd2e22&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer