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Praise and indictment for celebs on Twitter

Before it was cool

I’ve been on Twitter since 2006 and have tweeted 9,651 times (at the time of this writing). I was on Twitter years before it was cool. I’ve watched Twitter ‘grow up’ in a sense.

It’s a small world

In the last few years, I’ve really started to notice how celebrities have embraced Twitter to interact with their fans. Twitter has provided that ‘small world’ feel in the palm of your hand. A celebrity might actually reply to you, answer your question, or otherwise acknowledge you. For the celebrity, this is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly, they literally have their whole fan-base in their pocket – via the Twitter mobile app. They can talk to their fans at any moment and have real interaction. That couldn’t happen before Twitter (at least to this extent).

 

Not to brag…

Here are a few folks that have interacted with me on Twitter. They are great examples of people who use Twitter to have a dialogue rather than a monologue (digital billboard):

  • Don Lemon (CNN News Anchor) – retweeted and replied to me about Romney VP pick
  • Stefan Bucher (designer/illustrator) – conversation about his book
  • Andrew Garcia (American Idol finalist) – conversation about DSLR cameras
  • Candace Cameron-Bure (DJ Tanner from Full House) – answered a question about John Piper
  • GoDaddy.com office of the president called me when I tweeted about them (in 2006)

I can’t send you a Twitter reply, but give me your money

I don’t believe Obama or Romney have ever replied to a fan/follower on Twitter (as noted by the ‘no replies’ text on their twitter profiles). Are you kidding me?!?!? You want us to give you money, ‘get out the vote’ and actually go and vote for you come November and you can’t reply to some of your followers by answering questions, etc? Could you not spend 5-10 minutes of your day to read a few twitter questions/concerns and personally reply? Heck – make a campaign minion do it… that would be a start.

It’s gotta be an enjoyable habit

To sum up, the reason celebrities interact with fans by replying and retweeting them is because using Twitter and interacting has become a habit for them. They enjoy it and do it regularly. They also understand the importance of interaction with fans. Conversely, I think you can figure out why some only use Twitter as their digital billboard – never to interact with anyone…. because they don’t understand Twitter and it’s not a habit for them. They haven’t seen the value and don’t realize how enjoyable it can be. Twitter can’t be a forced task, it has to be part of your life, habits and what you enjoy. You can’t just ‘learn’ Twitter, you have to learn to enjoy it.

 

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