To say I experienced a strong gag reflex when I recently found out what famed starlet Kim Kardashian made for five tweets (that’s a whopping 700 characters of her time, max), is an understatement. If you are wondering what she gets paid to say “OH EM GEE I totally heart Puppies R Us! Check them out here www…..” let’s put it this way: for five tweets, I could quit my current job as an AE at a Manhattan PR firm and live relatively comfortably (ok, in the suburbs, not downtown Manhattan). For five tweets!
Twitter has opened up so many doors for marketers, PR pros and advertising people alike. The blessings of the outreach of Twitter are innumerable.
However, I question the validity and transparency of advertising (there must be better word choices, I’m just reaching here) through celebrities on Twitter. I’m the appropriate demographic for Kim Kardashian; she’s appealing to me. But do you, your company or Kim Kardashian herself think I’m that thick and apt to follow along? (The answer is yes.)
Sure, if Kim Kardashian tweets about a company that no one has ever heard of, BOOM, you’ve got immediate exposure to thousands of people. But what percentage of those people actually get their “lemming” on and go immediately to said company and purchase products just because Kimmy said to do so because she does? Someone, commission a study, stat!
I may eat my words on this and be entirely wrong, but seeing Kim Kardashian tweet blatant advertisements in 140 characters makes me feel the way I did when McCain announced Palin as his running mate. “Oh because I’m female, you think you’ll appeal to me with that choice?”
I digress. To me, Twitter belongs to “the people.” This medium is a place for community, connection and engagement, not pushy, sterilized advertisements. Organic advocacy of a product or brand from a Twitter friend who engages individually with fellow users will carry much more weight (with me) than Kim Kardashian touting the latest self-tanning spray.
Tags: advertising, kim kardashian, twitter
It may seem that having celebrities tweet for companies is wrong, but some regular person with over 1,000 followings may also be used from companies to write corpotate tweets. What is the difference from have a regulare person have a sponsored tweet over a celebrity? The answer is that when a celeb says something about a product or company the readers are more likely to check out the product or company. I think that this marketing angle can be cheap but it is effective.
You have a good point – thanks for your comment! I never necessarily said this advertising tactic was wrong. I just am not a fan and nor am I apt to buy a product because of a paid celeb endorsement. Perhaps it’s simple jealously that celebrities make what they do tweeting where as communications professionals tweet, and write press releases, and do client meetings, clip placements, etc. etc. for the same fee.
Totally agree! Keep writing so I have something interesting to read on my lunch break, please.