Michael Jackson family wanted to 'buy' Twitter followers

by Staff, Brand Republic 10-Aug-09, 11:45

LOS ANGELES - Australian marketing company uSocial.net, which sells packages of Twitter "followers", said that Michael Jackson's family wanted to buy 25,000 followers for the pop star's Twitter account before he died.

Leon Hill, chief executive of uSocial, said that his firm did not deal with Jackson directly, but with a member of the Jackson family.

"I can't admit that we dealt with Michael Jackson directly, though we were in touch with someone in his family recently who tasked us with conducting a Twitter campaign on an account relating to him.

"For obvious reasons we'll be dealing with his family from here on in, though it would have been great to conduct services for Michael Jackson in a different time, under different circumstances."

USocial, which values a follower's worth at US10c (6p), sells packages of followers, ranging from 1000 to 100,000, to brands that want to boost their Twitter connections.

The firm claims it finds users who will be interested in hearing from the brand by tracking Twitter and working out what users are interested in to match profiles. It then invites the users to begin to follow the brand, meaning only users interested in the brand will respond.

Michael Jackson's Twitter account has close to 30,000 followers, however it has only three tweets, which have all been written after his death on June 25.

If this account became Jackson's official Twitter account before he died, it seems unlikely that he would have needed to "buy" followers, given his immense popularity across the world.

Comments

Barry Hall - 12/08/2009

This is complete rubbish and the media have bought it hook line and sinker. This company \(uSocial) needs to be shut down s they are a bunch of fraudster's and if you want to know why then read this: http://www.oneleggedfrog.com/?p=68