I always thought that Twitter was only a social media platform, nothing more and nothing less. That is, until a few days ago. I was doing some light reading on Eonline.com and stumbled upon an article about celebrity tweeters. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian get paid up to $10,000 PER TWEET. I for one was a little upset. You follow your favorite celebrities on twitter and never know if there are tweeting for real or for money.
Ad.ly is the new social media company behind the celebrity tweets. They claim to “connect consumers to celebrities.” Over 5,000 celebrities and 150 companies use Ad.ly for a paycheck or to enhance a campaign.
Some celebrity tweeters have hundreds of thousands of followers who they influence on a daily basis. Is tweeting for money (without saying it) betraying our trust? I follow the Kardashians on twitter (I’m not going to lie) and after reading the Eonline.com article, I don’t know if their tweets are opinion or money driven.
Some celebrities have started using #ad at the end of their tweets. You may think that they are doing this out of their own goodwill to let their followers know that they are getting paid. Wrong. The Federal Trade Commission recently changed its "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”.
The FTC states that “Celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media.”
How is the FTC catching the online rule breakers? Well, unless someone is trolling the internet 24/7 not everyone will be caught. Some celebrities are still tweeting like this law is not in place. If they do know they don’t care because the fine is only 11,000 dollars which they can pay back in oh….2 or 3 tweets to their “fans.”
-Sara Alderman
Sources:
How I found out: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/ask_the_answer_bitch/b160341_do_celebs_get_paid_tweet_about_products.html
Who is helping the celebrities
http://ad.ly
Wow, I had no idea...I wonder if my boy Ochocinco is tweeting for cash. It might just break my heart.
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note, celebrity tweets can also do good things, like raise money for charity.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/celebrity/2010/09/celebrity-tweets-help-raise-money-for-charity/
Yeah, great post--It's going to take a while for this to all shake out, but the technology exists to monitor people's tweets. If the FTC doesn't get to them, the IRS will. And if you're tweeting on behalf of a client, you should designate it in some way, too. (Not sure I'd publicly admit I follow ANY of the Kardashians, though!)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Twitter is a trademarked brand name and should always be capitalized.