Social Media, Fame, and Influence

This Element is an excerpt from 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking (9780137154357) by Juliette Powell. Available in print and digital formats.
The microcelebrity phenomenon: using social networking when possible to become the world's #1 expert in your super-narrow niche.
When Nintendo introduced the Wii, it challenged the conventional idea of what makes a system worth playing. Then, a Carnegie Mellon graduate student used the same system to challenge the public's notion of who's an expert. Johnny Chung Lee discovered the Wii's $40 controller could be repurposed to create high-tech devices rivaling competitors 100 times as expensive. Within a year, Lee's YouTube Channel attracted more than 10 million viewsÖ.