Celebrities, Ghostwriters & Twitter—Going Too Far?

Actor Hugh Jackman is the latest celeb to get caught up in an internet scandal when he was forced to admit that he uses staff for his Twitter updates after one of them got the name of the Sydney Opera House wrong in a post about his lunch plans. Just a few years into the Twitter phenomenon, and the ghost-twitterers have arrived. But who are they fooling?

Twitter is there for people to use in pretty much anyway they want to, and celebrities have definitely taken advantage, from Erykah Badu and Jay Electronica tweeting about the birth of their child, to Diddy’s recent cereal and porn confession. Shaquille O’Neal meets (tweets) up with fans and gives out game tickets on a regular basis. Part of the coolness of Twitter lies in the ability to have access to the people you follow, and at least in the case of these stars, you know what you’re reading is coming from them. Everyone shares as much or as little as they want, and hopefully everyone goes away happy.

Tech expert and Alltop CEO Guy Kawasaki had no problem admitting he uses ghost Twitterers in a recent New York Times article, and for him it makes sense. Twitter is a perfect marketing tool for his company and his brand, and most of the information he and his team post relates to technology, social media, and of course Alltop, all areas of his expertise.

I know famous people are busy, and its one thing to have help telling followers when you’re next movie premiere, game, or concert is. When Barack Obama showed up on Twitter, I sincerely don’t think anyone expected it to actually be him. And his tweets were about the campaign, not personal things. That’s the difference between using Twitter for marketing and information sharing, and to update followers on every detail of your personal life. If it’s personal, it needs to be coming from your keyboard to my screen. A third party literally just steals life out of the whole interaction.

The important thing to remember is that you don’t HAVE to be on Twitter. It might be the cool, hip, popular thing to do, but if you don’t have the time, the inclination or the tech savvy, its okay to leave it alone, whether you’re a celebrity or not. Yes, you need a website, and its probably best that an expert handle that. But if you can’t see fit to write about your own life to your own fans in 140 characters, just let it go. As Shaq said in the New York Times article, “It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.”

What do you think about ghost tweeting? Not a big deal, or a total violation?