The Authentic Tweet

December 5, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis
Filed under: Red Alert Dossier, Social Media

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I’ve had this discussion recently with a few different people and I feel the need to blog about it. As I’ve alluded to in recent posts there are many marketers out there that feel an authentic tweet is not yours if it’s not you. It was Spring, I believe, of this year when Twitter was all a rage because everyone found out that Guy Kawasaki, an online genius, used multiple ghost-tweeters. There were people I saw that unfollowed him for that vary reason. Seriously. Despite the fact that he generates some of the best content out there, not to mention a phenomenal site, AllTop.com, they unfollow him because it’s not always HIM who’s tweeting. Frankly, I find this obnoxious and unreasonable.

There are business people out there who have Twitter accounts they use for marketing purposes. So, among the million things a business owner has to do during the day (hire, fire, taxes, scheduling, managing, servicing, repairing, maintenance, paperwork, and you know the list would go on and on and on and on) some people have the audacity to expect them to be the one and true voice on Twitter. I’m sorry. That’s not rational and you are not rational for thinking this way.

So the argument typically continues like this. “Well, politicians represent themselves on Twitter so they should be the one interacting, posting, etc on Twitter.” Is that so? Since when did a politician represent themselves? HAHAHAHA. I know. I see that too. Let me rephrase that. Since when did a strong, conservative candidate only represents themselves? A politician represents an organization…a movement…a constituency. @VoteForMe is not a person but a representation of something much, much bigger. It is not vital that you spend 20 hours a week blogging, tweeting, updating on Facebook and sending text blasts. If you do I’m afraid you’re going to lose because that’s 20 hours you don’t get to spend IRL (in real life) in front of the people you seek to represent. Hiring a ghost tweeter is NOT a bad thing. I don’t care what people say. They obviously have never run a campaign or they do this type of thing for a living which affords them the opportunity to spend 20 hours in Twitter.

Does that mean you don’t have to ever tweet? No. You still need to communicate. You still need to interact. Just use common sense. IT’S NOT THAT HARD! Stop over thinking it. Go out and find someone (like us ) that knows what they’re doing and get it DONE!