Conan O’Brien’s First Twitter Follow Demonstrates the Power of Social Media

On Friday morning, Sarah Killen was a normal small town girl. She had a Twitter account, Lovely Button, and she had three followers. She was taking classes online for a local high school, getting ready to marry her fiancé, and trying to raise money for her upcoming walk in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure. She had to raise $2,300, and she had nothing.

By Saturday, Sarah Killen had more than the $2,300. She was well on her way to her new goal of $5,000. And it was all thanks to Conan O’Brien.

The former talk show host has a Twitter too, and on Friday, Sarah found a message in her MySpace inbox asking if Conan could follow her. She didn’t really understand the implications of saying yes. Because Conan wasn’t following anyone before Sarah. And as soon as he started following Sarah, her life changed.

She had 16,000 followers in two days. She had 4,000 emails within an hour of Conan following her. She had offers for free stuff (including a custom made wedding dress from a designer in New York). And she had money for the breast cancer walk, and was using her new-found fame to promote other charities, like the Children’s Hunger Fund, which was brought to her attention by that dress designer.

Not only are these both great charities she’s supporting, her story really demonstrates the power of social media and the Internet to get the word out about things like this. The free stuff and the potential fame are great, but it’s also great to see someone using their popularity for a good cause. I talked to Sarah via Skype, and she told me she has received many requests from people wanting them to publicize their businesses, but she only wants to use her large following to bring attention to various charities.

She’s looking forward to participating in the breast cancer walk, particularly now that she knows the funds can be raised. She and her mom saw the walk advertised on TV and decided to participate in the one that will be happening in Michigan in early August.

“Cancer runs in my family so it kind of hit home with me,” she said. “I was afraid that we wouldn’t get the minimum donation. We got it that day, so I’m not really worried about it anymore.”

As far as her relationship with O’Brien goes, she hasn’t talked to him, and she isn’t sure why he picked her or what’s going to happen. He tweeted that he had decided simply to follow a random person, and didn’t say anything about his intentions beyond, “Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.”

Killen said people are saying she should be the first guest on whatever new show he ends up hosting, and she would definitely be up for that. “I think he has a plan,” she said. “I have no idea what’s going to happen.” Right now, she hopes to graduate and buy a house with Slowik before their wedding. She’s not sure where this will go, but she said, even if it stopped today, it was truly a life changing experience. “It’s really all up to Conan,” she said. “He could stop it right now if he wanted to or let it go on as long as he wants to. Every time he tweets people go crazy.”

It’s certainly an interesting experiment by Conan, and a great demonstration of how one little thing like following a person on Twitter can change so much. People with the Twitter power of Sarah should learn from her eagerness to use her fame to benefit various charities. You can go here to help Sarah reach her goal for the 3-Day walk, or here to learn more about and donate to the Children’s Hunger Fund.