Britney Spears is on Twitter, yes the Real Britney Spears. The comeback is on and it will be social medialized. A few weeks back Britney and her new team re-launched BritneySpears.com in a blog/magazine style and honestly, I give the girl her props. She has taken some heat from some Social Media superstars including TechCrunch and Gary Vaynerchuck, yet with all the circumstances, time constraints and events that have occurred in her life in the last 1-2 years, I think her team is doing a great job exploring Social Media.
Her Twitter Account
The domain is twitter.com/therealbritney and the Tweets range from announcements of new videos to pictures of Brit and the kids to Team Britney replying to social media and twitter heavyweights on how to best use the service.
My thoughts
After a rocky start, I think they get it. There is transparency when non-Britney posts a Twitter and when Brit herself decides to use her smart phone of choice, she leaves a line letting us know it is really her. I also like how she is using Twitter as a feature on her website. It is in the header and displays the latest update as shown below.
Businesses using Twitter generally sue Twitter in the same manor. They send out links, press releases and news related to their company and occasionally jump into conversation with replies, questions and other posts. What most of these companies do not do is offer the transparency of who is Twittering.
Southwest Airlines has a corporate twitter account and they are doing it great. They are a part of the conversation with more replies than pushy company information, yet I don't know who from Southwest is talking to me. When The Real Britany sends out a message it is signed by the writer. I think this is an incredible step towards transparency from brands who wish to tweet from one account instead of having multiple accounts for Briteny's Manager, Britney's stylist, etc.
In a post on Chris Brogan's Blog on Monday featuring Brea Grant from Heroes, Brea's Social Media Leader, Laura Roeder steps in and mentions this when the topic of a Twit Team comes up:
it’s unreasonable to expect that Britney Spears (or other celebs) do everything herself. Brea doesn’t do the technical back end stuff, like manage WordPress and all the YouTube stuff. But Brea writes the content and everything. Laura says that it takes people to run the website and the social program, but as the support, not the “talent.”I think that's a great point. Let the talent handle the content and let the team get that content online, looking good and get it into the hands of as many people as possible. When looking into getting into Twitter, it is important that you as an artist learn about the medium and really jump in, be personable and learn from doing. When your time gets too busy to manage you should look into your team, but still be a key player in the content creation. Remember that your fans are buying you and your music, your lyrics and your personality. If you are letting your team write your thoughts for you, you lose authenticity and the power you have over your audience.
What are your thoughts?
Here is a great post for musicians on and thinking about using Twitter by @CyberPR
-Greg Rollett
(Me on Twitter)
