FIRST WORD LANCE ULANOFF
Facebook and Twitter: Celebrity Deathmatch!
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lame Shaquille O’Neal. Facebook’s sudden, desperate move to help celebrities, sports personalities, and big brands transform their somewhat static Facebook pages into full-blown profiles is, I think, a direct response to the excitement created by relative Twitter newbie and basketball icon Shaquille O’Neal. Although you can find numerous celebrities on Twitter, most employ handlers and sycophants to post updates—and virtually all of those posts are pointless or full of selfpromotion. There are exceptions: Web 2.0 poster child and sometimes actor Ashton Kutcher and his wife, actress Demi Moore, are both on Twitter, and they clearly Tweet for themselves (though this is not always a good thing). Shaq’s posts, however, are something else entirely. First of all, Shaq’s Tweets are frequent and, more important, he is constantly encouraging average Twitter users to engage with him. Sometimes he asks people to guess where he is. Other times, he challenges fel PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION JUNE 2009
low Twitter members to find him and say hello. This is a new level of celeb engagement, and something far beyond what any celebrity or brand could accomplish with one of Facebook’s advertising-centric pages. This, I think, has scared the crap out of Facebook execs. There’s a Facebook press release that details all the celebs and brands that are currently on Facebook and how they can transform those pages into profiles and share with the masses. (Profiles are essentially what average users have on Facebook.) My favorite document, however, is Facebook’s new best practice guides for public figures, musicians, and communities. I dug into the public figures (celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc.) part of this PDF and saw that Facebook is using Ashton “I’m Everywhere” Kutcher as the example. Aside from the somewhat helpful tips on how to set up your Facebook profile (they’re talking to you, Britney Spears!), the PDF is almost a parody: “If you are a celebrity, athlete, politician or public figure, with Facebook public pro-
