When @jimmyfallon tweeted last Wednesday to check out his Twitter Page at 6 pm because he was “trying an experiment”, I considered setting an outlook reminder. Ever since Jimmy Fallon took over NBC’s Late Night for Connan O’Brian on March 2nd, he has integrated social media into his show, taking it to new and unmarked territory.  Therefore, as a loyal @jimmyfallon Twitter follower for nearly 2 weeks, I was eager to see what 6 pm would bring.  

It started with Jimmy Fallon “twitterviewing” Cameron Diaz via three of his followers interview questions earlier this month.  While the questions weren’t necessarily life changing interview questions, it did result in an entertaining interview and more importantly, he was able to make all of his twitter followers feel like they were part of the interview and thus more connected to the show. While it could have just been a cheap trick to get a couple thousand more viewers, I truly believe Fallon is onto something in the way he is engaging in social media on his show.  

So, when I finally remembered to check back @jimmyfallon’s twitter feed, he simply had a tweet which requested you to follow @bryanbrinkman, dubbing it the “Bryan Brinkman Experiment”. Clearly, as I am not one to ignore a request by a celebrity tweet, I started following @bryanbrinkman, me and 10,000 of his closest friends. It was more than 3 hours before the show even aired, before he even announced what the experiment actally was, and @bryanbrinkman already had more followers than some major twitter users.  Fallon finally reveled the experiment on air, a simple ‘how many folowers can I get @bryanbrinkman’ (who started with 7 followers earlier that day pre-Fallon), paired with an entertaining segment featuring the founders of Digg.com and Russell Brand, all of whom tweeted on their MacBook’s throughout the show.  Today, it is almost a week later and @bryanbrinkman is at nearly 33,300 followers. 

This experiment brings up so many questions for me.  Will interviewers never have to come up with their own questions again, always turning to the public to find out what they really want to know? Will @bryanbrinkman’s tweets become more interesting before everyone unfollows him?  Either way, I truly believe we can count on Fallon to continue to use Twiter and other social networking sites to entertain, grab attention and solidify the power of this media during his tenure on NBC’s Late Night.