Top 5 Ways Writers Benefited from Twitter Celebrities (and Vice Versa) in 2009

2009 seems to have been a record year when it comes to celebrities joining Twitter. From Ashton Kutcher to Oprah Winfrey, celebs have discovered Twitter. My personal take? I happen to think that is a good thing, both for the celebs and for those who wrote about them. Perfect system? Never. But when it works, it can really work well for both celeb and writer.

Although it was hard to narrow down the list, here are top 5 ways writers benefited from celebrities (and vice versa) being on Twitter in 2009:

If you already followed and wrote about a celebrity like Marina Orlova of Hot for Words, Twitter helped promote the information, a win/win for both celeb and writer.

Before I knew that Marina Orlova, who has a site on YouTube called HotforWords, had a Twitter account, I wrote an article about Marina and her Hot For Words site here , as well as her creative ways of spreading information about word meanings.

Later, when she wrote a book called Hot for Words: Answers to All Your Burning Questions About Words and Their Meanings, I contacted Marina and asked if I could provide an update on her life. She agreed and the result was another article here . By then, Marina was on Twitter, so any tweets had that much more potential power to reach readers.

If you wrote about a topic near and dear to the heart of a celebrity like Levar Burton, the person might be kind enough to retweet it.

That was the case about an article here about a site I'd been following, one with the title, Sh__tmydadsays , an account run by Justin Halpern. I didn't know as much about Halpern as I do now but did notice that he only one follower. That person? The actor, Levar Burton (a verified account). After I put out a tweet about an article covering the possibility of a television show based on Sh__tmydadsays, Burton retweeted it, adding a congratulatory note to Halpern.

The result? Views on the article soared. Because Levar Burton is a fan of the site (and plenty of people are fans and followers of @LevarBurton on Twitter) the article got more attention. Without Levar Burton being on Twitter, that article would probably have had far fewer readers - and less people would have known about the potential television show.

If a celebrity like Marlee Matlin had expertise, life experience or information, they could provide tips or advice.

Because I have a relative with a hearing issue, I sent out a tweet about it and included @MarleeMatlin in the list of recipients. She saw it and was nice enough to reply to me, providing information from someone who had the experience and reassurance I needed. Could I possibly use the info in an article? Yes, but that wasn't my primary reason for contacting her. But you can bet that I've taken extra care to follow her tweets, particularly those related to making television and movies and other events accessible to deaf or hearing -impaired people - and retweet some of those.

Twitter could help writers connect with celebs they've interviewed - or hope to interview - often quicker than email or other methods.

This is one of the main advantages of Twitter. If you interview someone like Tim Ferriss , author of The Four Hour Work Week, you might need to check facts in a pinch and even email may seem too slow. When Ferriss debuted a show called Trial by Fire , I was lucky enough to be able to talk to him (briefly) before the show's debut. I had some last minute questions that hadn't been addressed before my deadline, so I put out a Twitter alert. The result? A phone call that helped fill in some gaps in my information about the show, the premise, etc.

Celebrity tweets - and tweets about celebrities - taught writers about the limits of Twitter news, updates and information.

Do I really need to provide a list of celebrities who supposedly died in 2009 - but whose deaths turned out to be hoaxes? Some celebrity "death notices" first appeared on Twitter and actually made it into news updates and news feed. Sometimes news actually does break first on Twitter, perhaps by celebrity tweets, especially when two celebs are feuding and willing to let the whole world know about it. But there have been other instances where so-called "news" (in reality, rumors) have spread like crazy, most recently one trying to convince people that Nick Jonas died. Writers who go with a celebrity tweet before rechecking the information could have a quick reality check via a sharp learning curve when the celebrity turns out to be very much alive.

Sources:

Personal experience