The word is out: former Apple evangelist / best-selling author / venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki doesn’t write all his Tweets! The world is coming to an end… or is it?
According to DaveFleets blog, “Bottom line: Guy Kawasaki, creator of Alltop and Truemors, has three other people writing through his Twitter account on his behalf.”
Almost anyone who regularly uses the internet these days know all about Twitter. If not, it is a relatively new (just turned three!) service that has exploded in popularity, allowing you to update your “status” with 140 characters to tell your friends what you’re up to, thinking about, reading, etc. (Businesses are also using Twitter for marketing and PR).
As web 2.0 has evolved, so have the ways interact online. Twitter is at the forefront of this evolution. But as with all forms of online communication, you don’t always know whether a user’s posts are actually coming from that specific person. Who knows what goes on behind the scenes?
Guy Kawasaki is a celebrity in the blogger community, which is why this is such huge news – some have even called it a scandal. With over 90,000+ followers on twitter, a lot of people feel betrayed. While this may be the initial feeling from most of the online community, I feel that most people will come around. This may be more common than we think. But how will this affect Guy’s personal brand today?
Let’s go back a few years to the writers strike. Does anyone remember how many shows went off the air and had re-runs during that time? I do, because it happened to most of the major TV shows. But why is that? A strange phenomenon seems to take place when someone becomes famous: they become a puppet. Not literally of course, but because so many people are counting on them and so many more watch their every move, the person pulling the strings may not be the one who actually did the work.
For example, I recently found out from my little brother that Lil’ Wayne doesn’t write all his songs. My brother who loves his music was really taken back by this at first. It’s a letdown to realize that your favorite artist doesn’t write all his own music. If you think about it, it isn’t humanly possible to do everything that these figureheads do without help from someone else. Now this isn’t a bad thing if the figurehead is honest about it, like Guy was. When confronted about it, Guy openly admitted “…there are people who tweet on my behalf.”
While this strategy may not work for everyone, this is how Guy has always been, up front and to the point. We know him as a straight shooter, who has always been honest with us. Immediately after this situation got out of control, he updated his bio on twitter to include the other people who tweeted for him. No lies, no smoke and screens, just the Guy we knew and loved with a new twist: complete transparency.
So how does this affect his personal brand? Perhaps after the “scandal,” we have more trust in Guy because he’s been so open about it. Even after the original wound was opened (the Tweets coming from Guy aren’t coming from Guy!), his personal brand shouldn’t take too much of a hit because of his swift response.
- Author: Trace Cohen
