Thursday, August 19, 2010

Purpose Driven Tweets

I just got a notification that Pastor Rick Warren is following my tweets. Why would this celebrity-pastor (with 135,233 followers) follow my tweets (along with 14,115 others)?

Since I don’t know and have never met the Purpose Driven Pastor I have to admit that my response is a bit cynical: It's part of a marketing ploy that many “celebrities” engage in. A marketing team manages their account and “follows” other people in the hopes that they will in turn follow their tweets. Then, when you click “follow” they either un-follow your Twitter feed all together or simply never pay any attention to your posts.

Why would this bother me? Because it is disingenuous. Following someone on Twitter should be based on a genuine desire to hear what is going on with others. Whether it is your friend from college or Kim Kardashian, the point is not how well you know them, but rather your desire to engage in their life and hear what they have to say; superficial or otherwise.

I have no delusions of grandeur regarding my tweets/postings, nor am I trying to gain any kind of “following”. Simply put, I just don’t want to be “used” in an effort to pad another’s Twitter stats.

To be gracious, I do not know Pastor Warren's motives for following my Twitter feeds. So out of fairness to him I wrote a letter asking him why he is interested in following my tweets. I'll keep you posted on his response... via Twitter of course :)

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