Celebrities and Social Media

Through out the semester we have learned a lot about social media and it’s uses for marketing (along with other things of course). Sometimes we can forget that our favorite entertainer, politician, or athlete is also considered a brand. In order to make the most of their brand celebrities make hire someone to update and maintain their social media accounts. This could be their publicist, assistant, or they could even hire someone solely for the purpose of operating their social media. The title along with this position: celebrity social media manager, sometimes referred to as a “ghost tweeter” (Cohen). A ghost tweeter is the same thing as a ghost writer except they are used for the purpose of writing tweets.The role of a social media manager is simple.-Keep a celebrities social media accounts active (adding content, sending tweets, etc.)-Engage followers and friends.-Do not start feuds

Having a social media manager helps ensure that celebrities do not say things they may regret later.

College graduates are being hired as social media manager and make about $50,000/year (Piazza).

Sometimes social media managers are hired by the celebrity, other times the publicist just takes on the role. This is particularly common when it comes to older celebrities. A publicist may find it easier to operate a clients social media on their own rather than teaching someone how to us it.

Who Runs your Favorite StarsSocial Media Accounts?

Celebs using Ghost WritersSome celebrities let it known they are using ghost writers when it comes to social media. This page displays people who are known to have some help when it comes to operating their social media accounts.

Rapper and director of 50’s web empire, Chris “Broadway” Romero let the cat out of the bag about 50 cent’s Twitter use when he said “He doesn’t actually use Twitter, but the energy of it is all him” (Bryant)

Britney Spears has been open about her use of a ghost tweeter, she even had the ghost writers indicate when it was them tweeting so fans would know (Bryant).

Hugh Jackman was forced to admit he didn’t run his own twitter when an employee mistakenly typed Opera Centre, instead of Opera House (Bryant).

Ron Paul used his social media as an “organizing tool” and had staffers assigned to each social network site, according to Paul’s campaign manager Jesse Benton (Cohen).

Celebs who operate their own Social Media

Shaq has openly expressed his dislike for ghost tweeters, “It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you” (Cohen).

Katy Perry insists on being the voice behind her twitter account, and so she is (Hughes).

Twitter is a hot topic on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, so naturally he runs his own. He is known for inventing hashtags and reading when others use them (Hughes).

Cher brings her big personality to social media. She is a fan of internet abbreviations and capitals (Hughes).

Celebrities are the most mentioned people on Twitter. This means that people are passionate about them but doesn’t necessarily show their influence, as a lot of the mentions could be/are gossip related.

Celebrity InfluenceAccording to a study that was conducted on user influence on Twitter, celebrities and mainstream news organizations are the categories people interact with most. They also concluded that mainstream news gets more retweets while celebrities are more often mentioned. Celebrities get mentioned because of the value their name holds. They are a brand and putting their stamp things makes them appear more desirable to some.

The study did not have a clear cut answer when it came to celebrity influence on Twitter. They found that influence is not an accident and that it takes work to gain it.

The study looked into retweets and mentions. They found that a retweet is driven by the content more than who posted it and that mentions are directly linked to name value and recognition. To me, this means that mentions hold more influence then retweets.

All this information is obtained from a study entitled: Measuring user Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower Fallacy

Celebrity InfluenceCheck out a list of the Most Influential Celebrities on the Internet. It is compiled by ABC News using Klout scores. A Klout score is, “a number between 1 and 100 that represents how influential they are across social media platforms, as calculated by Klout's algorithm” (Effron).

Can you guess who has the highest Klout Score?

Click HERE to read the article

Celebrity InfluenceThe formula to figure out ones Klout score has changed since the previous article was released so President Obama is currently holding the title for highest Klout Score

I decided to compare Britney Spears and Katy Perry’s Twitter accounts to see what the difference between them was. I chose them because they are both MEGA pop stars. Britney has been fourth coming about the fact she uses a ghost writer and Katy doesn’t. Katy is on Twitter for the connection with her fans so I wanted to see how they compared.Katy Perry is more active on Twitter than

Britney Spears. Britney’s last tweet was from 04/26 while Katy tweets multiple times a day.

Britney vs. Katy

Katy interacts with fans through retweets while Britney only retweets articles/videos pertaining to herself.

Both women include some information about their personal life but Britney shares more pictures.

You can really get a sense of Katy’s personality where you can tell Britney is a family girl.

Works CitedCohen, Noam. “When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking”. NY Times.com. The New York Times. 26 Mar. 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/technology/internet/27twitter.html?_r=0>

Piazza, Jo. “Celebrities Paying Writers, Recent College Graduates to Tweet on Their Behalf, Insiders Say”. Foxnews.com. Fox News Entertainment. 21 Apr. 2011. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. <http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/04/21/celebrities-paying-writers-recent-college-graduates-tweet-behalf-insiders-say/>

Bryant, Charles W. “Top 5 Ghost Twitters”. HowStuffWorks.com. HowStuffWorks, Inc. 30 June 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. <http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/information/5-ghost-twitters.htm#page=4>

Hughes, Nicole. “10 Celebs That Actually Run Their Own Twitter Account”. Huffingtonpost.com. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. 28 Jan. 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fueled/10-celebs-that-celebrity-twitter_b_4676062.html>

Cha, Meeyoung, Haddadi, Hamed, Benevenuto, Fabricio, AND Gummadi, Krishna. "Measuring User Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower Fallacy" International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (2010): n. pag. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM10/paper/view/1538

Effron, Lauren. “The Most Influential Celebrities on the Internet”. Abcnews.com. ABC News Network. 6 May 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.

Perry, Katy (katyperry). Spears, Britney (britneyspears).