Do Twit Twitty Stars Really Tweet On Twitter? - Page 3
Many online commentators are appalled at the practice of enlisting ghost Twitterers, but Joseph Nejman, a former consultant to Ms. Spears who helped conceive her Web strategy, said there was a more than a whiff of hypocrisy among critics.“It’s O.K. to tweet for a brand,” he said, remarking how common it is for companies to have Twitter accounts, “but not O.K. for a celebrity. But the truth is, they are a brand. What they are to the public is not always what they are behind the curtain. If the manager knows that better than the star, then they should do it.”
In the last couple of months, the Britney Spears Twitter stream has become a model of transparency. Where the feed once seemed that it was all written personally by Ms. Spears — even the blatantly promotional items about a new album — lately it can read like a group blog, with some posts signed “Britney,” some signed by “Adam Leber, manager” and others by “Lauren.” That would be Lauren Kozak, social-media director of britneyspears.com. (Ms. Spears’s management team declined to be interviewed for this article.)
However, it does seem that there are a few people who can manage to have thoughts of their own:
The basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, for example, is a prolific Twitterer on his account — The Real Shaq — where he shares personal news, jokes and occasional trash talking about opponents with nearly 430,000 followers.“If I am going to speak, it will come from me,” he said, adding that the technology allows him to bypass the media to speak directly to the fans.
As for the temptation to rely on a team to supply his words, he said: “It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.” [emphasis mine]
Athletes seem to be purists. Lance Armstrong, only hours after breaking his right collar bone, tweeted about it, using his left hand. Charlie Villanueva, a forward for the Milwaukee Bucks, tweeted at halftime from the locker room on March 15 about how “I gotta step up.” (His coach, Scott Skiles, was not pleased with his diversion, but the Bucks did win.)
I agree with Shaq on something. What is the world coming to? Continued on the next page
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