5.Are Celebrities on Twitter Winning or Losing Their Fans?

Twitter, Fans, Celeb and Public Relations.

Twitter can be considered as one of the most important social network in the world in this moment. But why? How can the famous 140 characters be used by fans? Indeed fans, now, are directly connected to their idols just using their computer at home or wherever they are with their smartphones. Twitter isn’t just compliments and loving comments though. Fans can express whatever comes up in their minds and, consequently, tweets turn funny, maddening and even disturbing.

Nowadays more than before, developing public relations skills is crucial for being a celebrity. The examples of bad and good skills in the management of the relationship between fans and stars.

But, being oppressed with offensive comments by fans on twitter could be a big issue if the celebrity is not able to handle them. Throughout these years where the use of social network as twitter has turned everyday more important and crucial for the establishment of stars and celebrities, when fans start to hammer away at them, knowing which the best way to behave is essential for celebrities.

Last year, Stephen Fry, actor and TV presenter, decided to quit Twitter with the excuse that he preferred avoid uncomfortable during the filming of Star Wars where he was cast, tweeting this:

Rumours, perhaps, confirmed that he chose to quit twitter with the purpose to avoid “too much aggression and unkind” tweets.

About exaggerated and unkind tweets there are several other cases where these “fans” won against celebrities. In more than one occasion twitter users crossed the line offending celebrities or people who became sadly famous, as for example Mrs Payne, mother of Sarah Payne who, in 2000, was abducted and murdered, had to quit Twitter because she has been stalked and harassed by mean and cruel tweets against her dead daughter, or the Zelda Williams’ case, in which she decided to delete her twitter account after reading “cruel and unnecessary” comments about her and her father, Robin Williams.

But there are celebrities who decided to face their “mean” fans replying to their tweets. The examples are even more than the cases quoted above. Indeed the celebrities who decided to proceed in this way in handling fans, often gained liking and followers with funny and hilarious reply against tweet. As for example Demi Lovato, who, after being fooled by a fans, replied her back in this way:

But, on the other hand, there are celebrities that preferred to avoid at all the problems that owning a twitter account brings in. Indeed, the Hunger Games star and the 2012 Oscar winner, Jennifer Lawrence chose to have no social network accounts, answering, when asked why she took this choice, that internet has always scorned her so much.

The example are several and every one of them is peculiar and interesting to understand this complex world of communication seen by the public relations point of view. What is sure, analysing all these examples, is how much important for the establishment of celebrities are social networks and, therefore, the way to handle their accounts.

Stefano Lattante