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BY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
It is nothing new for leaders to be fakes, but in the Internet age so are their followers, at least on Twitter, according to an Australian study.
At a time when popularity is a ruthless function of numbers, celebrities, businesses and politicians all appear to be inflating the amount of people following them on the pervasive micro-blogging site, according to an analysis by uSocial.net.
The Brisbane social marketing site names some prominent suspects: Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Justin Bieber, Martha Stewart, JetBlue Airways and the institutional Twitter page of new British Prime Minister what's-his-name (David Cameron).
"Using only publicly-available information and our knowledge of how Twitter works, there's no doubt that many of the biggest names on Twitter are artifically increasing their followers," Leon Hill, uSocial chief executive officer, said in a press release.
While the study may serve as a useful alert to advertisers and the media, the source is a bit unlikely.
The Australian company describes itself as the first firm to sell advertising on Twitter. On the front page of its website, uSocial offers a link for those wanting to "buy followers" on Twitter.
That takes would-be buyers to text and video ads, asserting, "We know the secrets of making you a rock star overnight." The company says that it can deliver "up to 100,000 targeted, real Twitter followers to your account."
"Big follower numbers can mean big dollars," the ad says, noting the success of business social media marketing often depends on numbers generated by networking sites.
Hill did not immediately reply to a question as to whether any of its own customers are among the leaders in phony numbers.
But according to the uSocial statement, it is "extremely likely" that at least 15 of the top 100 Twitter users with the largest followings have inflated numbers. It considers another 10 of the top 100 as possibly juiced.
Joe Tyrrell may be reached at newjerseynewsroom.com
Anyone in Social Media Marketing knows that the number of followers that you have is much less important than the quality of conversations you are having with them.
And, most human beings know that it is very difficult - if not impossible - to have quality and meaningful relationships with more than eight to ten people in our lives, at any given time.
This makes celebrities and other numbers seekers nothing more than people collectors. Should we be impressed with huge numbers? Well, we already know that most of these people have a larger fan base than the rest of us, since they are exposed much more in film, on television, in sports, in music, etc.
We have to imagine that for most of these folks, their fan base is in the tens (of thousands), to hundreds of thousands and even in the millions for the most popular of them all. So, seeing these numbers on Twitter isn't that shocking, unless they are people we've never heard of before.
Artificially inflating their follower numbers? Very disappointing, but who cares. If enough of them do it, they'll ruin it for themselves and for most other celebrities. The media is very smart and will immediately question and downgrade the importance of these numbers to the individual's true popularity. Not smart for the marathoners, perhaps, only the sprinters.
Marc LeVine
Director of Social Media
RiaEnjolie, Inc.
www.RiaEnjolie.com