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$20K per tweet? The shady side of celebrity tweets

Posted Jan 7th, 2010 at 4:12 PM and seen
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Did you hear *fill tweeting celebrity name here* loves Nestle’s chocolate chips? Or, that so-and-so famous person uses a Sony Vaio? Before you skip out to the grocery store to stock up on Nestle sweet treats, take note that 1) your favorite super-skinny starlets probably don’t down Crunch bars and 2) companies like Nestle and Sony pay up to $10,000 per tweet by certain celebrities. That’s right, 10,000 buckaroos.

Kim Kardashian recently made headlines with talk of $10K sponsored tweets and it turns out that she isn’t even the top potential earner. Ad.ly CEO Sean Rad claims Britney Spears and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs could rake in up to $20,000 per sponsored tweet. For her part, Kardashian claimed the sponsored tweets are limited to once per day.

All this fast Twit-cash could be a thing of the past though as CNet reports a new regulation will require celebs to disclose if a blog post or social networking status update was posted as a result of any type of cash incentive. Those who fail to paid reviews or sponsored tweets could face fines of up to $11,000.

The lighter side of Twitter and celebrity news.

 Annie Colbert

Comments (17)

Jan 07, 2010
Annie Colbert said...
Full disclosure: I'd totally take $10K/tweet. Heck, I'll take $5. :)
Jan 07, 2010
Financial Samurai said...
So Sweet! Their ability to manipulate and influence is amazing! Well done capitalism!
Jan 07, 2010
hackmanj said...
There is a reason why I don't follow many celebrities and yet another to add to the list of reasons.
Jan 07, 2010
Desiree said...
It was just a matter of time before this type of payola started to surface. Free market and all that etc blah blah blah I suppose.
Jan 07, 2010
Amy CHam said...
This strikes me as in the same vein as being photographed in a certain designer's clothes or drinking a particular brand of sports drink/liquor/coffee. I find it sad that a rare chance for people to get to know their favorite celebs a little is getting eroded into yet another advertising method, but not especially surprising.

I think most adults expect celebrities are getting something out of it when they plug a brand. It worries me more when it's regular people who sound like they're just chatting about something they like--I think this has the greater potential to permanently damage the medium.

Jan 07, 2010
Simon Jones said...
@ Amy CHam - Who's getting to know these celebs through twitter? At the very start, celebrities may have felt they can be honest on twitter, but so many got burnt with this approach that their feeds are no more revealing than any other sort of PR they engage in. By the time you get to the point where you can make this sort of cash per tweet you already have far too many followers to consider approaching anything remotely like honesty.
Jan 07, 2010
acronymR said...
Payment
Accepted
Yes

Make
Exclamation

That
Object's

Totally
Wonderful
Excellent
Exciting
Terrific

Jan 07, 2010
Jim Morris said...
This is exactly what was covered under the FTC guidelines and they explicitly spoke about the fact that any influential blogger, facebooker or tweeter needs to somehow disclose IN THE TWEET that they get paid or it's FTC time baby.

Aren't these celebreties' lawyers like up on this stuff?

Jan 07, 2010
Sarssipius said...
Just sounds like they're attempting to bring the good old mass "broadcasting" into the potentially targetted audience social media! Why would they be clever and find new ways to leverage these platforms and audiences while 10 k$ is enough to bring a message to thousands of uninterested people and let the statistics do the trick!!
Jan 08, 2010
vikas said...
swaet
Jan 08, 2010
vikas said...
sewat
Jan 08, 2010
Luciano Passuello said...
$20,000 minus $11,000 in fines still seems a pretty good deal.
Jan 08, 2010
john said...
I have always stayed away from all trends that had me be one of the cows. They dont have to do anything to cows to get them to the salughter house they just follow each other and dont ask what all the excitment about. occupation ; shepard
Jan 08, 2010
John Lessnau said...
How long before Twitter starts taking a cut of paid Tweets? At least it would give them a business model.
Jan 08, 2010
Amy Cham said...
@Simon Jones - Note I said "a little." :-) Some do seem to do the kind of random, stream-of-consciousness type of tweets the rest of us post. For some people the idea that their favorite actor/singer/whatever has the same kinds of thoughts as they do, and are *seemingly* more accessible via this channel is really exciting; it will become less so as paid tweeting becomes more widespread and obvious.
Jan 11, 2010
Michael Collier liked this post.

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