Twittering Dragons, Tweeting Stars
January 27th, 2009 by Simon Heseltine
Twitter is a 140 character micro-blogging platform that has so far generated over 1.41 billion (that’s billion with a b) messages between users. Those message run the gammut from insightful to inane, from brand bashing to content sharing, from personal to events of worldwide importance. Politicians have, and in some cases still do, used twitter to get their message out, to inform followers of rallies, or of important news. News organizations use twitter to push their stories, and companies use it for branding and customer support.
There have been some celebrities that use twitter to connect with their fans, people such as Monty Python’s John Cleese, Lance Armstrong, Richard Branson, Penn Jillette, Scottish tennis star Andy Murray, Kazaam star… ok basketball player Shaquille O’Neal, Star Trek’s Brent Spiner & Wil Wheaton, Dave Matthews, and even MC Hammer.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed more and more British celebrities signing up and tweeting. People such as the venture capitalists from BBC America’s Dragons Den: Duncan Bannatyne, Deborah Meaden, Peter Jones, and Theo Paphitis, UK television presenters Philip Schofield & Judy Finnigan, and former Youg Ones, Rik Mayall & Adrian Edmondson.
Is this a sign that Twitter is starting to catch on? Will the celebrities pull their fans onto the service to hear what they have to say? I‘d have to say…yes.
I’ve noticed that whenever television presenter Jonathan Ross has been talked about in the press or on the radio (Sirius plays BBC radio on a 5 hour delay in the US), his Twitter account has frequently been mentioned as a source for the piece. In the 54 days that Jonathan Ross has had a Twitter account, he’s accumulated almost 14,000 followers, with quite a few of those being new users (from an unscientific study of the last 60 or so people that followed him). British actor, comedian, & author Stephen Fry has over 50,000 followers (myself included) and has done interviews evangelizing for Twitter.
Twitter has had some phenomenal growth in users (the last number I saw was 2,000 new users per day), and with these celebrities pushing Twitter out into the limelight, that growth can only continue. So, the questions are:
- Are you active on Twitter?
- Does your brand have a presence?
- Have you at least reserved your brand name on Twitter?
If not, why not?
Update:
Sadly it looks as though either the celebrities have gone from Twitter, or as some suggest in the comments there were some fake accounts as 1 week after this was published all of the dragons, and both of the Young ones were gone…
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There maybe a few stars on twitter but they dont talk to you unless they know you like @Schofe @wossy @stephenfry @johncleese @xxandi I say goodmorning to them, converse with everyone else including them and dont even get a good morning back which is common politeness. Doesnt take much to say good morning. They all boast about the fact they are there and they will talk with general members of the public… with they heck as like
You’ve just made a bit of a fool of yourself – it’s well known in the Twitter community that most of the Celebrities that you have listed as being on Twitter (including the one you highlight Duncan Bannatyne) are fakes. Ironically you haven’t mentioned the only genuine Dragon (James Caan)!
It seems to me that when we only had blogs to connect us with whoever the corporate gatekeeper was protecting, then these were written on the whole by the PR team, or that crazy new job title, the digital biographer!
Twitter really enables people to have an immediate connection with whoever they want to follow, whether that is a celebrity or not. After we listed the Dragons Den members this morning we have been inundated with traffic and feedback about the Dragons. Sadly three of them turn out to be fake accounts, but Duncan Bannatyne and James Caan are the real deal.
And at least two others in your list are also fakes.
It’ a brave new world of multi-channel communication, will ‘brands’ have the same courage as the individuals behind those brands? Who knows, only time will tell.
Regards
David Long
CelebrityTweeter.com
Great overview of the Twitter celebrity circuit, UK and abroad!
Just to let you know, there are suspicions that the Dragons on Twitter may be fake.
I had this pointed out to me by @andrewburnett
His suggestion was to “follow @valebrity for all confirmed real celebrities”
Hope that helps!
[...] more celebrity names on Twitter, read Twittering Dragons, Tweeting Stars. But beware of the [...]
I’m not a celebrity but I must say that Twitter is a great way to connect with people of like minds and people that you might like to learn from
@Nick, As you can see from @David Long’s comment below, the ‘Twitter Community’ wasn’t aware that they were fake accounts at the time the post was written, in fact there were thousands of people who subscribed to those accounts, which they wouldn’t have done if they’d known they were fake. Also, you say that the Duncan Bannatyne account was fake, and the next comment says that his was real… so who knows?
As for James Caan, we’re still on the Richard Farley series of DD in the US, so I have no idea who he is.
The secret to conversing with celebrities on twitter is asking valid, not stupid questions, they will answer, for the record @DuncanBannatyne is the real deal, On his recommendation I went to his site:
http://www.bannatyne.co.uk/index.asp
to get his books, they are signed, and kim his assistant got them sent straight away.