The high price of free Social Media

The beauty of Social Media is the cost – it’s free. But as more and more celebrities ‘get in the game,’ what soft costs to they begin to incur?  Let’s be honest, if I stopped tweeting tomorrow, I doubt I would receive Direct Messages or emails wondering what happened. I certainly wouldn’t get any angry messages from followers who felt I had betrayed them and I can’t imagine anyone writing a blog post telling everyone that they would never support anything I was involved with.  But, then again, I’m not MC Hammer.

As celebrites, and pseudo-celebrities use Twitter to further (or resurrect) their careers, you can see the potential problems:

• Popularity, and therefore celebrity relevancy, is there for all to see via follower numbers. You’re now on a never-ending treadmill
• To reply or not to reply, that is the question. By not replying, you risk setting off an angry fan with a voice and a channel
• One-upsmanship. If celebrity A did x, then you’ve got to do x + y
• What happens when you stop tweeting? Have you let down fans; fans that may now not go to your next movie/buy your next album?

These issues aren’t terribly different from ones brands face every day, and of course many celebrities have turned themselves into brands. But being a terrific singer or actress or athlete doesn’t mean you’re a great marketer or brand steward. Sure, Ashton Kutcher has the ears (or eyeballs) of a million+ people now. High reward, yes; but high risk now as well.

So, here are my Top Five Tips for celebrity Tweeters:

1. Tweet early, tweet often: If you’ve made the commitment to jump in the pool, make sure you keep swimming
2. Follow people: There are plenty of applications, like Tweetdeck, that will help you manage the signal-to-noise ratio. But not following people makes you look aloof. The whole point of being on Twitter was to not be aloof.
3. Engage with consumers: Don’t just chat with your BFFs, your entourage or other celebs, throw shout outs to us regular folk occassionally as well
4. Be really cool, host a Tweet-up: Let everybody know where you’re going to be and invite them to hang with you, even if it’s just for a 30 minutes.
5. Don’t just talk, listen: Yes, you’re a celebrity and everything you say needs to be recorded for posterity, we know. But if you are following people (see #2) you’ll learn something new. Spend some time getting to know Twitter Search as well. (I’m talking to you, Oprah!)