Request Media Kit

George Takei: If You Want Me On Google+, Circle Me 250,000 Times And Prove It’s Not A Ghost Town

For years, George Takei was mostly known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek (in both TV and film). While many Star Trek fans will probably always remember him for that role, the 75-year-old acto...
George Takei: If You Want Me On Google+, Circle Me 250,000 Times And Prove It’s Not A Ghost Town
Written by Josh Wolford
  • For years, George Takei was mostly known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek (in both TV and film). While many Star Trek fans will probably always remember him for that role, the 75-year-old actor has made a name for himself in another medium – social media star.

    It’s highly likely that you follow Takei on Facebook or Twitter. On Facebook, he routinely posts funny images, popular memes, status updates, and the like. Basically, if the reddit community or something similar would appreciate it, there’s a chance that Mr. Takei is sharing it on Facebook.

    Takei has amassed over 2.1 million “likes” to his page, and his posts usually receive tens of thousands of likes and shares and sometimes hundreds of comments.

    For example:

    George Takei

    You have to be of a certain age probably to get the full humor of this. Gotta love Bob Ross.

    or…

    George Takei

    I didn’t know Yoda visited Beatlejuice.

    Long story short – he’s a Facebook superstar. He’s also a minor star on Twitter and Pinterest, mind you. But now, some active Google+ users want to bring Takei’s humorous presence to their network of choice.

    Here’s how operation #TakeiTuesday was born and spread across Google+:

    Stephanie Van Pelt

    All right all. It's here. It's #TakeiTuesday ! Help us get @GeorgeTakei to join us over here on G+!!!!

    Send him a Tweet and let him see all the G+ love we have to offer!


    Stephanie Van Pelt originally shared:
    Hi guise.

    I don't know about you, but I'd love to see #GeorgeTakei  join us here on G+. Just putting the word out there that I'm on a mission to get his attention. I was thinking that on #TakeiTuesday  it might be a nice time to try to reach him on Twitter @GeorgeTakei to show him how much love he'd see from this community.

    All right my Trekkers, who's in?

    Mike Elgan

    Join the effort to beam +George Takei from Facebook to Google+!

    Unless you're new to the planet, you've heard about actor +George Takei's vocal complaints against Facebook's idea to actually deliver your posts only if you pay. (Right now, Facebook secretly deletes most of the status updates you post without telling you or the people who will never see them.) 

    http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/06/14/george-takei-fires-his-phaser-at-facebook/

    A growing red-shirt army of Google+ pleeps, including +Robert Partridge, +Stephanie Van Pelt, +Danial Hallock, +Sarah Rios, +Simon Skiles and others are banding together to beam the one and only +George Takei from the inhospitable Planet Facebook to the Starship Google+!

    (Too much?) 

    Here's what you can do to join the effort: 

    1. Circle +George Takei

    2. Plus-one and share this message to grow the movement. 

    3. Write a comment below in support of +George Takei dumping Facebook and moving to Google+!

    https://plus.google.com/u/0/102004895957308863792/posts/9LhGPmKywft

    The reference above to Takei’s outspoken anger toward Facebook and their new Promoted Posts feature stems from this update he posted to the site on June 13th:

    FB used to allow fans to elect to see ALL posts by selecting “All Updates” from the right hand corner of a post. For community pages such as this, though, FB recently decided that only certain fans will see certain posts, and it plans to ask me to pay for more fan views.

    I understand that FB has to make money, especially now that it is public, but in my view this development turns the notion of “fans” on its head. So I encourage all friends and fans to visit my page regularly to make sure they share in all the fun.

    –George

    He later posted a follow up where he let a Facebook employee clarify that “the main point of confusion we’ve seen is that pages don’t realize that their posts were never reaching 100% of fans. If you go to your page insights, you’ll see this has always been the case.”

    In fact, Facebook’s Promoted Posts simply allows page owners to have their posts reach more than the typical 6%-12% that some of them are used to.

    Nevertheless, Google+ users pounced on the notion to get Takei over on their side. And it looks like it has worked. Takei posted this just a few hours ago to his Facebook page:

    George Takei

    Fans on google+ started #TakeiTuesday that trended to #2 yesterday. My twitter feed was awash with it! So, I’m negotiating with Brad over whether I’ve the time to establish a new base on google+ in addition to my FB, Twitter and Pinterest. In the meantime, I’ve got a little pied-à-terre there now. Brad said if we get 250K fans to “circle” me (did I say that right?) it might be worth populating the profile with content. So, we’ll see.

    George Takei – Google+
    Okay, google+ fans, I hear you. Brad says if I can get 250K fans or more to “circle” me there, that means google+ is not a ghost town. He doesn’t think it’s gonna happen. Shall we prove him wrong?

    That link does indeed take you to George Takei’s new Google+ page. But he was serious about the no content part. It looks like he’s going to have to see 250,000 people add him to circles in order to start really using the service.

    As of right now, he’s up to 18,000.

    When Google+ was in its infancy, it openly courted celebrities to join – their weight could obviously help to popularize the network. and to some extent, it worked. Takei’s not going to single-handedly launch Google+ into Facebook’s orbit, but having more popular presences from other social realms embrace Google+ couldn’t hurt.

    Get the WebProNews newsletter delivered to your inbox

    Get the free daily newsletter read by decision makers

    Subscribe
    Advertise with Us

    Ready to get started?

    Get our media kit