Twitter Power: Activate!

For anyone who still does not comprehend the power of Twitter, take a look at this:

This is one of many photos taken from Pioneer Square in Portland, Oregon. Thousands of Portlanders gathered in hopes of catching a glimpse of a free Dave Chappelle show at midnight. Mr. Chappelle did not advertise this show through regular paid advertising channels. What happened last night was the direct result of social media — more specifically, Twitter – and the word of mouth that spread as a result.

When you are on Twitter and you post to your, say, 2,000 followers, the power is not just in spreading the word to those 2K folks. Your followers have their own set of followers, and so on, and so on.

Around 11pm is about when the biggest buzz started as crowds gathered in Pioneer Courthouse Square. The tweets of anticipation were amusing and fascinating, as I followed the buzz on TweetGrid, my fave source for following Twitter activity. By 12:55 he still didn’t show up, and the crowds were getting restless. Was this a hoax? Was it just a ploy by Harry Potter fans to keep Portlanders away from the theaters so they wouldn’t have to wait in huge lines to see the premiere of the new flick? (That was, by far, my fave funny theory). At 12:56, Mr. Chappelle hopped on stage… with a single mic and tiny amp. Sound system fail. It reportedly took 20 more minutes for the sound system to show, and then he reportedly stayed on stage for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour more after that.

So was it worth it? Some say yes, some say no. The point is that, from purely a social media campaign standpoint, it was a success. Thousands of people showed up for the mere possibility that Chappelle would show up. I am willing to bet that half of the crowd consisted of people who aren’t even normally Dave Chappelle fans, but who were excited by the hype. I know I was.

From an event management standpoint, it could be considered a bit of a fail. Making a crowd wait 30 minutes is one thing, making them wait an hour – until 1 am on a Tuesday, no less – is another.  Then showing up without adequate sound and making them wait another 20-30 minutes is just asking for trouble. Reportedly, Chappelle’s managers didn’t even work with the Square managers (well, that would take the fun out of an unplanned event, right?), so the Square employees and the main guy were reportedly cleaning up the beer bottles, cigarette butts and various other lovely party items for several hours.

Twitter has the power to mobilize crowds instantly. It has the power to confuse authorities and also aid authorities. It has the power to allow thousands of people access to information, photos, and video streams in real time, unfiltered, which normal media outlets do not have the capability to do with their “constraints” of being responsible for accurate reporting. It is also the potential downside of Twitter: there is no duty to accuracy, and in fact, some of its charm is in the inaccurate tweeting that can both fluster and entertain.

This clearly is a non-important event in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve seen Twitter make a huge difference in protests in Seattle and Washington, not to mention the more recent protests in Iran. It’s incredible to me the depth of possibility once you give power to the people. Sure, many times we use it for trivial purposes (I will likely, for instance, tweet that I am starving later today), but in the instances where we can use it to make a difference, we do. And more importantly, we can.

PS – the photos were taken from various tweeps & sent to me last night so if they are yours please email me so I can credit you!