Fake but fun twitter accounts - A PR Nightmare

In the past about the only fun a publicist could have in her messaging would be writing a creative lead paragraph in a press release.  Yes, all press releases are creative…but sometimes you get to work on a product or content that lends itself to a more informal tone in your missives.  For instance, if I was publicizing “The Last Comic Standing,” I’d probably start the release with a joke from one of the comedians.  But, I’m seeing a whole new arena now open up for us PR folks thanks to twitter with fake PR accounts.

Case in point – the @BPGLOBALPR twitter account-I first found out about it through an article in Wall St. Journal. It’s a great read and I highly recommend it — But, if you can’t take a look at it here’s the opening paragraph  for you –”A Twitter user with an account dubbed BPGlobalPR is posting satirical entries about the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — and already has more than twice as many followers as BP America’s actual account.”

Oh, the real BP PR team is not happy about this counterfeit account. However, at the same time, BP acknowledges that people are using this vehicle to express their views about this catastrophe and they are not shutting it down. The other surprising antidote about this fake PR account is that several people thought it was the real deal!  This is an interesting idea for citizen protests and something PR pros need to think about and figure out how they would handle it if it happened to a client.

To give you an idea about what they’re writing — here’s some example tweets from BPGLOBALPR :

1. We respect your outrage, we just don’t believe it’s sustainable. #exxonvaldez #bpcares 9:52 PM Jun 13th
2. Investing a lot of time & money into cleaning up our image, but the beaches are next on the to-do list for sure. #bpcares 8:19 PM Jun 13th v
3. On behalf of England, I declare war on the United States. Now, does anyone need fuel for their tanks and jets? ^Tony
4. Opening more wells in the Gulf! We’re drilling for ALL the oil down there to ensure this never happens again. #4yoursafety
5. Millions of people live in the gulf. If each one donated just a few thousand dollars, we’d have enough $ to fix this mess. #bpcares 2:11 PM Jun 11th
6. We are not killing animals in the gulf, we are creating fossils in the gulf. Have a little perspective. #bpcares

These fake accounts are all over the web.

In the film industry, there’s @FakeParamount. Some recent entries include:

1. Congrats 2 Weinsteins on acquiring Michelle Yeoh film Reign Of Assassins. It’ll look good on the shelf with the other films U never release. 4:19 PM Jun 11th
2. Wanted: Brilliant foreign directors to direct bland & boring action movies. Just like John Woo, you too can direct movies like Paycheck! 12:15 PM Jun 11th
3. You weren’t suppose to know that selling toys comes before the script. Doh! (via @arlenecharris) you mean this one? http://ow.ly/1XmtR 12:05 PM Jun 11th v
4. Ever wonder what would happen if the Titanic was a Transformer? Wonder no longer! James Cameron & Michael Bay unite for TitanicFormers 3-D! 10:38 AM Jun 11th

Or my personal favorite…@facebookPR. Take a look.

1. Moving all of our servers to Sweden next week so we can really go rogue with our privacy policy 7:06 AM Jun 14th v
2. Working hard on our new Bing-like backgrounds 6:56 AM Jun 14th
3. Instead of location, age, relationship status, we’ll be showing advertisers your pics so they can tailor ads to you further 4:20 AM Jun 13th
4. Great morning. Just found a way to give more of your personal info to advertisers. 4:19 AM Jun 13th
5. Typical girl on Facebook: Hey, friend me so I can see if that girl I didn’t like in High School got fat. 7:57 AM Jun 12th
6. Typical guy on Facebook: Hey, friend me so I can see pics of your hot friends. 7:56 AM Jun 12th

And individuals are getting there’s as well….poor Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!…there’s a fake account for her too….I guess it’s the ultimate form of online flattery right? That’s one way to spin it….Anyway, @fakecarolbaratz….you’ll see activity like this:

1. RT @ivan_d Yahoo is serious about social: cafeteria sandwiches named Status, Update, Connect http://twitpic.com/1wta2x All in a yrs work 12:25 PM Jun 14th
2. Announcing 2 company wide bans effective immidiately: Google as default homepage setting and combovers. 11:52 AM Jun 11th
3. About the $0.00 check @LeanBlog We’ve recently started letting users know exactly how much we value them. You got your answer, now scram. 9:17 AM Jun 11th
4. The hype for that new Apple thingamajig is deflating faster than my futon. 1:18 PM Jun 8th
5. <3′s Bourbon Watermelon Fridays! 4:25 PM Jun 4th
6. I consider much of what Google does to be on par with plastic cutlery. Cheap, poor usability and disposable.

There’s a lot of people who have extra time on their hands don’t you think?  But, here’s my PR tip for you…go ahead and register a fake twitter account for your company and top CEO-but never use it.  That way, you’ll own the account names and others can’t use FAKEcompanyname for your business.  That won’t stop them, it will just make it a bit harder for them to gain some followers using a name that isn’t as recognizable.

I’m off to read some more fake news….

The real not fake

Cindy