Daredevil Nik Wallenda Floods Social Media

Earlier today, I was scrolling trough my Twitter feed when I saw a sponsored advertisement from the Discovery Channel promoting the live event that they broadcasted tonight featuring Nik Wallenda. For those of you who don't know, Nik Wallenda is a member of The Flying Wallenda family. This circus family had been pushing the acrobatic limits over the years performing and attempting some of the craziest stunts known to man. Seven members of the family have died while attempting these extreme challenges. Nik Wallenda has already conquered walking across the Grand Canyon  on a tightrope with absolutely no safety net. Tonight, he conquered another extreme challenge of walking in between skyscrapers in Chicago, BLINDFOLDED!

This was an example of how social media plays such a large role in spreading awareness about something. For instance, I saw this promoted tweet from the Discovery Channel, then I told my roommates about it. This resulted in us gathered around the television biting our fingernails from being so nervous watching this insane attempt on live television. Throughout the program, the reporters kept encouraging people to tweet the hashtag #watchwallenda. Not only did this encourage viewers to interact with the program and share the awareness to their followers, but there was even a sweepstakes involved.

This sweepstakes was known as the "Skyscraper Live Tweetstakes." All people had to do was tweet throughout the program with the #watchwallenda, and they were automatically enrolled in the sweepstakes to win a special edition Nik Wallenda JR Terrascope watch. This was a great opportunity for the watch company to create awareness. Nik Wallenda has such a large following and this was a great opportunity for potential customers to interact with the company with the incentive of winning a nice watch. Here is a photo of the special edition watch that features Nik walking on a tightrope:

Watching this program tonight made me wonder, what were things like before social media? Social media is incorporated and integrated into so many things that we do. I think it is a very good opportunity for companies, but I constantly wonder what will social media do next to take things to the next level?