Thursday, July 22, 2010

To tweet, or not to tweet? It's a question!

by carol


This blog begins with the assumption that you know what Twitter is and may have tweeted once or twice yourself.

For a celebrity, Twitter can be a very effective method for marketing their career, or not. Twitter gives a celebrity control over information about himself/herself, or not.  Twitter can let celebrities communicate directly with fans, or not.
Like any tool, Twitter can be successful and fun, or not. Why you use it and how you use it can help make that determination for a celebrity.
Laura Fitton, a social media consultant, maintains that in some cases, Twitter can provide savvy media control for a celebrity.
"It's more about controlling your privacy than giving it up," Fitton says. "When Britney Spears shares her details on Twitter, it's not going to stop paparazzi from stalking her. But it devalues the stuff they're able to steal from her. She's actually reaching in and taking back a piece of the paparazzi economy."
That’s how it can be successful, but how can it be fun for a celebrity?
“…my fans are very, very important to me. And whenever I can… I reach out [on my MySpace] blog and I like to respond to what I can.”  Alex O’Loughlin

First, let me say I appreciate the effort Alex has put into his MySpace page.  However, as he becomes more successful and his commitments increase, it’s obvious he has less time to read Comments and Messages, then post selected comments, approve Friends, write Blogs and generally update his site. 
Both MySpace and Facebook are social networking portals with a format that encourages members to stay online for extended periods of time to communicate and maintain their sites. Twitter is somewhere between the worlds of email, instant messaging and blogging.

Q:  Are you on Twitter or Facebook at all?
Alex:  No. CBS has begged for both but I’m thinking about creating my own ... it’s going to be called TWITFACE.
When does anyone find the time to tweet?  I can barely open my mail.  I have to pay someone to help me open my mail.  As sad as that may be, it’s the truth.  And what would I say?  “Hey, just letting you know I am going to get a coffee?”

I would suggest to Alex that he at least try Twitter. It actually has properties and attributes that are quite practical for a busy actor.

  • You can do it from your iphone at any time that’s convenient for you.
  • With a 140 character restriction, your messages (and those from fans) will be brief and succinct.   
  • You can reply to fan tweets to you, or not.
  • Link to photos/videos/web pages and let fans know what you’re reading, how tough the stunts were that day, stumbling over dialogue, when you take your first bike ride around Oahu.

Twitter exists in the moment. No prepping for it, no inboxes to deal with, no backlog. If you miss a stream of Tweets, who cares.  If Twitter were a book, it would be Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. No need to think about yesterday or tomorrow, it’s all about the present moment.
Some celebrities turn out to be normal people off-screen, caring for people close to them, loving their families, having pet peeves and bad days. Sometimes, the more human and the more normal a celebrity is in real life, the more people love them since the celebrity is a "real" person. Celebrities, it turns out, are just human.

3 comments:

  1. I think he is a reserved person because he likes to keep things close to his chest, hush hush and discreet.

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  2. I think he doesn't quite realize how much less time Twitter takes. I keep hoping he'll at least give it a try. He can always tweet on his bathroom breaks in he's short on time. LOL

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  3. I totally understand his position on this! Think it would bug him to much if he can't give 100% to everybody and therefor he would rather not get involved at all. Some stupid post on fan sites irritates me, how much more the person the message is directed at. You need to have a thick skin for that and maybe Alex does not.....

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