Gotta love the Asheville Twitter wars.
Looks like WLOSers John Le and Darcel Grimes are waging a friendly competition to see who can get the most followers on their respective Twitter feeds. Last I looked, Darcel was up on John by about 15 followers. If only it was as easy to get Twitter followers as it is to have Instagram followers, which you can actually get quite easily if you look at a site like socialfollow and the things you can do on there.
Here’s Darcel, blogging about tweeting. She’s soooo 2009:
I was leery of it when I first started. I had that sort of uncomfortable feeling that I got the first time I tried to cook a meal. What would I possibly do on Twitter? How would I ever get the real hang of it? This was definitely not for me. But, as the saying goes… slowly but surely things changed. I soon began to marvel at the wonders of this new technology. I reunited with former co-workers and friends. The tweets from others made me laugh . And, then once I started doing it, I didn’t want to stop. That’s when it hit me. I was hooked on Twitter. Oh, how the non-techies have fallen. But, I don’t mind. I’m enjoying Twitter. We even have a little newsroom competition going. John Le wants to get more twitter followers than me. I “Absolute-Le” don’t want that to happen. So If you haven’t tried twitter, shoot me a tweet. If you’re already on twitter, follow me, “Darcel Grimes”.
So there you have it. The Diva is getting hooked up.
In other major local Twitter news, there was a small, but perhaps instructive, example a couple of weeks ago of how not to use Twitter.
A little more than a week ago, somebody set up a Twitter account named “MayorBellamy,” named for Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy, who is running for re-election this year.
I say “somebody” because I have yet to determine who set it up, but it looked official. It featured a picture of Bellamy speaking from a podium. Within a few hours, MayorBellamy had hundreds of followers, and MayorBellamy was sending out tweets promoting the mayor’s accomplishments in office.
The sudden explosion caught a few local Twitter nerds off balance, and they started asking questions. Who exactly is “MayorBellamy”? Was it an officially sanctioned Twitter account? Was there a ghostwriter behind the tweets, and if so, was that an ethical and transparent action on the part of a local politician? And why was Bellamy, a church-going mother of two small children, following the tweets of pro wrestlers and porn stars?
The backlash resulted in the MayorBellamy Twitter account being taken down within about 36 hours of its creation.
As yet, there have been no clear answers volunteered by any of the parties involved. I haven’t had a chance to track down Mayor Bellamy personally and ask her, but I intend to.
3 Comments
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It is fairly easy to keep someone from following you on Twitter, you can block them, and you can secure your tweets (I hate that word)…as for the privacy controls, I think it is probably just as easy to start a bunk FB account, tho with the stripped down nature of Twitter it is a lot easier to remain "anonymous" …which has its pros and cons.
the scenario you described about mayor terry bellamy on twitter is why twitter is flawed. anybody can set up a twitter account, add pics, and make it seem as if it is legit. you have no assurance that it, or any other twtter account, is the real thing.
i set up a twitter account for myself, and within days i had all kinds of strange people following me on twitter…..this happens all the time and lots of people i know do not trust it and give up right away if they want any kind of privacy or exclusivity. that’s why i don’t think twitter is such a great thing. i prefer facebook, at least there are all kinds of privacy controls for users.