Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you just can’t ignore them. If the massive popularity of Keeping Up With the Kardashians wasn’t enough, the feisty family also has an enviable presence on social media. And they’re grateful for the role that new media has played in keeping them firmly in the spotlight, a fact they admitted to at NBCU’s Power of the Purse event. To get a perspective, consider that Kim Kardashian has over 18 million followers, while her sister Khloe and mum Kris have around 8 million and 3 million followers respectively.
It certainly helped that social media became a huge deal about the time the Kardashians launched their show. And the family jumped on the new media bandwagon with gusto. Back in 2011, Forbes called Khloe Kardashian the queen of social networking for her relentless twitter activity aimed at staying in constant touch with her fans.
The family has learnt that having an active presence is just as important as saying the right things on social media. Regardless of the reasons and the shock value for which the Kardashians have stayed in the public eye, they aren’t using social media to send out meaningless posts. Kim says that many of her posts solicit opinions and suggestions from followers on product creation and marketing. Her fans helped her zero in on the perfume bottle for one of her first line of fragrances. The Kardashians also have self-branded clothing and make-up lines.
That’s not all – thanks to their celebrity power, the family’s opinions on products and issues in general are almost always embraced and disseminated across the media. Kim has already lent her voice to the anti-bullying cause, along with fellow celeb Demi Lovato, who is also a powerful influencer on social media with 17+ million Twitter followers. Kris says she would like Kendall and Kylie to rally against bullying on social media as well. That the Kardashians stay on the pulse of social issues and actively express their views, can boost their star power and make them seem more human and aware as opposed to opportunistic and artificial, as their detractors believe them to be.