Like OMG for reals, Britney is on the Twitterand you can totally do what she is doing right after she does it... or maybe you can just do what her PR team is saying she's doing... or maybe you can just do what her Social Media team wants you to think she is doing...

You get the idea, right?

After all, Twitter's genuine appeal is as a tool that helps to make its "tweeters" more transparent. The idea behind Twitter was to find out what your friends or network members were up to. But is the benefit really the same when it's your PR team that tweets what you're up to... or what they want others to think you're up to? (okay okay, I'm a cynic.)

As Britney stages a comeback on the charts (Womanizer up to the #1 slot) it would seem that her PR team is branching out a bit into the social media scene. Not a bad move at all - but do they really "get it?" With a new blog that appears to have no definite content directly from Britney and a Twitter account that is obviously run by a staff member the group is definitely missing the mark - at least so far. I'm left to wonder if the pop star diva even knows she's either account running on her behalf.

Will her fans care? If the current stats of her Twitter account mean anything... probably not. At 22 updates and with over 2,700 followers I'm wondering if this is a good or bad sign for the likes of Twitter. Britney's popularity could be considered a great boost for getting Twitter a bit more "mainstream" but seeing that there's no evidence of the star herself could be a bit of a concern when it comes to the infiltration of social media by cheap marketing ploys.

I'm left to wonder if the mindless followers of stars like this do more good than the marketing teams said stars employ. Could the benefit of the masses that discover social media channels like Twitter and Plurk drown out the manufactured images with genuine conversation and networks?

Will Twitter become the next generation of "whack-a-mole banner ads" for seekers of genuine dialogue or content to be forced to sift through if marketing teams miss the point? Time will tell.

originally posted here...