Last week the UK press was in a buzz around a 104 year old woman who was using Twitter. This is obviously a world record, and it says a lot about the penetration of the 140-character messaging service. But was it real?
According to TechCrunch, it was not. In a post titled The REAL story behind the 104-Year-Old who joined Twitter they explain that the old lady had joining Twitter just one day before, and that she was convinced to do so by a company called The Geek Squad. Here is a quote from the article:
What none of these (UK Press) stories told you, however, was that poor old Ivy had not joined Twitter just because it was suddenly the talk of the old peoples home. No. She joined because home PC maintenance company Geek Squad signed her up, propped her up for a photo opportunity and press-released the hell out of it. And frankly I hope they paid her, or at least donated to her favourite charity because this is one of the most self-serving, cynical PR stunts I can remember.
Personally I am not a fan of faking things to get traffic and buzz (well, except on April 1st…). I believe it just adds noise on the web, and it forces people to compete on a lower level (i.e. resorting to anything to get attention).
But what about you, do you think it is a fair strategy to setup something like this and use it to generate buzz for your company or website?
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About Mark
Mark is an digital entrepreneur from New York City who recently acquired DBT. He started his ventures buying growing then selling several businesses and content blogs on Flippa. A perfect night for him constitutes pizza, wine, slow jazz and WordPress! He's an SEO expert and a growth strategist. When he's not working on his businesses he enjoys sharing his learned lessons with the DBT community.
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