The politics of tweeting

Stars’ personal access to micro-blogging site Twitter means that they have a chance to communicate with their followers in a genuine manner, and not through the mechanisms of a PR agency. While some Bollywood stars use this opportunity to provide fans with an intimate look into their personal lives and thoughts, there are others who seem to have undertaken the role of their own PR agents as they use the site for endorsements.

Last week, actress Genelia D’Souza accompanied the release of her movie debut, the Malayalam film Urumi, with a torrent of tweets including favourable reviews and positive feedback she had received for her performance. The campaign clearly worked and the film became a trending topic on Twitter. Genelia triumphantly retweeted the statement, “Urumi is trending on Twitter (India Trends). Wow. Thanks to all the fans who made it possible. You all rock!”

It is unlikely that the rich and famous are using Twitter to save on their phone bills so a probable explanation is that it is for publicity purposes and for the fraternity to promote one another subtly.

Actress Dia Mirza, for instance, tweeted last week, “Here’s wishing @DuttaLara and her team of Chalo Dilli the best! Trailer out today.” To which, Lara replied, “@deespeak. Thank you my darling.” Meanwhile, actress Bipasha Basu regularly endows her followers with links for trailers to her new movies and music videos. A tweet last month also suggests her giving publicity to companies she works with as she told her fans “to say hello to the people behind my hair for the last six years.”

Film-maker Farah Khan justified this by describing Twitter as the best way to get direct feedback from cinema lovers. “We are making films for the audience so it only makes sense to give them the first access to our film promos and stuff”, she said.

Earlier this year English model Liz Hurley tweeted herself into trouble with authorities after she included numerous references to a cosmetics company in her tweets. UK regulations state that stars must indicate when their tweets are being sponsored by adding ‘spon’ or ‘ad’ and the trade office was attempting to crack down on product endorsements on Twitter. In the US, an industry has grown out of tweeting and it recently emerged that actor Charlie Sheen, with 3,350,000 followers and counting, is being sponsored to tweet by an American company. It has also been reported that popular celebrity tweeter Kim Kardashian, sponsored by the same company, earns over $ 10,000 for every product tweet to her near seven million followers.

Despite the lucrative potential of tweeting there is no evidence that Bollywood actors tweet for cash, preferring it as a marketing tool and a communication platform for self-promotion. Actor Dino Morea, however, sees nothing wrong in this.

“Being very personalised, Twitter gives me an opportunity to get up close and personal with my well-wishers as well as people who want to know about my business venture,” he concludes.