10 HOT TOP PROVEN STRATEGIES & SECRETS HOW TO BE A TWITTER ELITE! ™ - Step 3

To recap, over the past 3 weeks I've introduced you to my 10 HOT TOP PROVEN STRATEGIES & SECRETS HOW TO BE A TWITTER ELITE! ™ system and showed you Step 1 (Never Tweet!) and Step 2 (Follow No One!) that can help you become a hot, top Twitterer.

This is the 3rd of 10 consecutive Tuesdays on which I'm going to release one of the Twitter Strategies & Secrets that the Twitter Elite don't want you to know. I will provide you with some truly profound advice, and also with examples taken from the ranks of the Most Followed Twitter Users to scientifically back up my points.

So, here is the Proven Strategy & Secret to be a Top Twitterer #3

3) Impersonate a celebrity. It helps if they aren't on Twitter but it doesn't really matter if they are or not. You can even impersonate the President.

Now, at first, this might seem counter-intuitive. "What are you talking about, Liz?", you say. "Won't people be able to tell that I'm not a Hollywood or media celebrity? I don't know anything about their lives." How very, very wrong you are.

With a little bit of effort, you can try to capture the "voice" of celebrity but it really doesn't matter. People will follow you because you have a celebrity name on your account, not because you are who you say you are or have anything interesting to say. Or not say...because some people will follow celebrity accounts who don't even Tweet. You don't even have to be able to spell the celebrity's name correctly!

But doesn't Twitter have a policy of suspending accounts that impersonate people," you ask. Policy, schmolicy. Yes, there are accounts that masquerade as celebrities which are suspended but Twitter only investigates these faux accounts if the real person complains about them.

Since there are still some high profile people who don't know or don't care about Twitter (I know, I'm shocked too), it is unlikely that they will ever know you exist or care enough to complain to Twitter. And, as you will see, some of these people who are already on Twitter don't seem to mind if you post under their name!

But, if you are afraid of running afoul of Twitter HQ, you can always go the route of the very popular @NotTinaFey and just openly declare yourself an imposter...it doesn't always seem to register with people who simply want to believe it is really a celebrity they are following.

Scientific Proof? Look at these very popular, HOT, TOP Twitter accounts who have racked up hundreds, no, thousands of followers:

Real account: @BarackObama 2,522,583 Followers
Fake account: @Barak_Obama 73,342 Followers

Real account: @50Cent 1,857,809 Followers
Fake account: @50_Cent 53,856 Followers

Real account: @StephenAtHome 1,156,189 Followers
Fake account: @StephenColbert 373, 808 Followers
Fake account: @StephenTColbert 94,115 Followers

Real account: @DDLovato 1,073,497 Followers
Fake account: @TheRealDemi 64,650 Followers

Real account: @SevinNyne6126 376,628 Followers
Fake account: @LindsayLohan 95,973 Followers

Real account: @RichardBranson 187,651 Followers
Fake account: @SirDickBranson 47,389 Followers

Real (?) account: @Rihanna 85,784 Followers
Fake account: @Rihanna_ 63,643 Followers

Real (?) account: @DanRadcliffe22 60,266 Followers
Fake account: @DanielRadcliffe 44,598 Followers

Just plain fakes:
@Beyonce 391,624 Followers
@NotTinaFey 388,270 Followers
@AdamSandler 203,128 Followers
@JenifferAniston 117,979 Followers
@RoGiddy 107,515 Followers (Seth Rogan)
@Timbaland 101,621 Followers
@Rachel_Bilson 94,227 Followers
@RealZacEfron 84,840 Followers
@ImMKOlsen 83,647 Followers (Mary-Kate Olsen)
@JohnnyDepp 79,178 Followers
@Beckham 79,043 Followers
@Rupert_Grint 71,737 Followers
@IAmKelis 65,890 Followers
@Michael_Cera 55,432 Followers
@GwenStefani 53,142 Followers

An all too common assumption that newcomers to Twitter have is that people care if a celebrity is real or fake. They don't. They just like to believe they are getting messages from famous people who matter. It's like finding a cupcake in your mailbox.

"But," you ask, "what about my 'personal brand'? What about my own identity?" Well, you can try what others have done and build up a fake account and then change the user account to your own name or company. This happened with mixed results with the following accounts this year:

@Michael_Phelps>@Lysted (suspended)
@Vanessa_Hudgens>@NewYorkCityPR (still active)
@BinboaUSAVodka>@EBayAuctionSave (still active)

Who knows? Your phony @RobertPattinson username could be your ticket to a million follower account!

Keep checking each Tuesday as I continue to reveal one of Hot Top Proven Strategies & Secrets On How To Be A Twitter Elite!™

Celebrities on Twitter: Love 'em, hate 'em or just don't care?

Recently, there has been a lot of media buzz surrounding the rush of celebrities on to the social network Twitter. Ashton Kutcher's (@aplusk) race with CNN (@CNNBrk) to obtain a million followers, Twitter co-founder Evan Willaims (@ev) appearing with Kutcher to show Oprah Winfrey (@oprah) how to Tweet, Twitter's Biz Stone (@biz) making an appearance on the Colbert Report (@ColbertEpisodes). Not just young Hollywood but even veteran journalists Barbara Walters (@barbarajwalters), Larry King (@kingsthings) and Daniel Schorr (@danielschorr) are getting on to Twitter.

A lot has been written about said about the celebrities themselves but what does this mean for the average Twitter user? Looking into the blogosphere, some authors have been enthusiastic about this development, others a little apprehensive while a few have kept a neutral point of view.

I had my own ideas about what this meant for Twitter users but I decided to conduct a small survey of users to see what their opinion was on the matter. From Tuesday, 3/21 9 am until Wednesday, 3/22 9 am, I ran a poll on TwtPoll, asking users for their opinions on the issue.

Over the 24 hours, the link was ReTweeted dozens of times and I ended up with 177 replies. While this doesn't sound like much, this gave it a rank of the #15 most popular poll on TwitPoll so that is a good gauge of what kind of response to expect in a Twitter poll.

So what did I find out? Well, I have a perfectly sized screen capture which I can't convert into a photo file so I'm left with text:

Question: What do you think about the recent rush of celebrities on to Twitter?

1. The more users, the better (14%)
2. It's exciting! I think it will enhance Twitter's image (9%)
3. It's like the E! Channel now. Who needs these celebrities? (7%)
4. I fear Twitter will lose its edge and become mainstream (11%)
5. I think that the flood of new users will mean more Fail Whales and will tax Twitter's system (11%)
6. I focus on my own social network. Lots of new users & celebs doesn't affect my experience (44%)
7. Other (3%)

Seeing how #1 & #2 are positive responses, and #3, #4 & #5 are negative responses, we can lump together these responses. I asked those choosing "Other" to write and tell me of their reason which boiled down to either a) I'm undecided/mixed feelings or b) I don't care or am indifferent. I think it is fair to put #6 & #7 answers together as "neutral".

Question: What do you think about the recent rush of celebrities on to Twitter?

• Positive response: 23%
• Negative response: 29%
• Neutral response: 47%

Because of rounding off, the total comes to 99%, not 100%.

These are close to the attitudes I had expected to see. The excitement surrounding getting Tweets from celebrities and the high media profile of a network we love mixed with fears of Twitter crashing or losing its "coolness" factor obscured the fact that for many people, celebrities have little or no consequence to their experience on Twitter.

Even with a conservative estimate of 10 million Twitter accounts, the fact is that only 13% of Twitterers (roughly 1 out of 8) follow the comings & goings of the Ashton Kutcher, the most popular person on Twitter. Or, that is, they have follow his account, we have no idea how many followers actually read the messages they are sent.

But for nearly half of Twitterers polled, they concentrate their efforts on their own social network. Twitter isn't a social network, it is 10 million different social networks that share some nodes in common with each other. If you don't follow someone, there is little chance you will encounter them unless their message is ReTweeted by someone who follow. And it might be safe to say that even some of the people who responded positively & negatively to the question also hold this view of their own personal Twitterverse.

Celebrities do affect the culture of Twitter, whether the infrastructure holds up, the public perception of the network but individual actors, singers, politicians, athletes or talk show hosts are not the people who cause most of us to join a social network and check in regularly with "our people."

Hollywood might add a few sprinkles on top, but our network of friends and acquaintances is the cupcake we have for dessert.

P.S. Because I neglected to set up and "end date" for this poll, it will actually be running indefinitely and the votes have increased to 184 while I've written this blog entry. Feel free to add your two cents: http://twtpoll.com/3vpb5n