Simarprit’s Weblog

Ghost Tweeting Has Arrived September 8, 2009

There have been ghost writers in the past and we all know their contribution in distorting history and in creating English language wizards out of foul mouthed, limited vocab perpetually drunk famous men and women. Let us all join our hands together to welcome the Ghost Tweeters and accept Ghost Tweeting as something which is going to stay with us. Yes, “Ghost Tweeter” has been defined, soon he will find a page on Wikipedia too and so would “Ghost Tweeting” they have arrived. I must come clear, I am disturbed by this. Social media ghost tweeting is absolutely unethical it is like using the advantage of darkness to pretend to be spouse and start lovemaking. It is so sad that I have noticed celebrities of all kinds resorting to this – Films, rock, sports and now even journalists of repute have jumped into the fray. Ghost of one such journo is so sick  that I have lost all respect for the publication and the person, I was a big fan of both.

So how do we identify ghosts, the way I am doing is:

1. By charting out their tweeting pattern in terms of time and language and relating it to general environment. If a celebrity is tweeting and there is heavy downpour happening in the area where he or she is tweeting from you know the kind of reaction to expect, if that reaction doesn’t come – just drop. Ghost.
2. If the celebrity tweets in English but you know that the celebrity is good in Spanish too, just drop a light  comment in Spanish immediately after the tweet – If you get a response after few hours you know you met a ghost.
3. If the celeb has just arrived, and the arrival coincides with an upcoming grand show or  a movie release and the celeb tweets as a seasoned pro, it is easy to spell  G h o s t
4. Celebs are likely to share anecdotes from their career and react to them, I have been teasing few of the ghosts with these, I know they just rush for their phones and revert with clinical replies like Hmm… I remember, Yes, yes how true, Oh! You remember that and so on. Once I told a ghost, you are ghost and the ghost decided to challenge me, when I accepted the challenge – the ghost was quickly told to block me.

PR agencies in their own interest should decide to leave social media outside their frame of reference, it will help them and help us. Social media offers a great window other than direct exploitation and celebs and PR business need to work on them rather than taking this disastrous path.

I would love to read your comments and know more about your Ghost Tweeting experiences