Odds are you've read Annie Colbert's work—you just didn't know it. That's because Colbert (pronounced like Bert of Bert and Ernie, not like Stephen) is a celebrity tweeter. She has stood in at the keyboard for Hollywood starlets, sports icons, authors, and tech biggies like former Apple chief evangelist and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. The 29-year-old New Yorker, who has a degree in sociology, got her start as a blogger and freelance writer, then stumbled into social media and an extremely successful business venture. Wired asked Colbert what it's like to be a professional ghost tweeter.
Wired: Your work is anonymous, so how do celebrities find you?
Annie Colbert: A lot of it comes from referrals. It's in my Twitter bio, but I don't advertise it. I don't go out and network. I'm not a big social media hustler—that's not my personality. But people are looking for me.
Wired: You only take on two or three clients at a time, which means you must turn other people down. How do you know when a client is right for you?
Colbert:: I talk to them and see if it's a good fit personality-wise. I'm going to need to embody who they are, so if we don't click, that account is going to take up more time. They have to be willing to participate, too. Once we get going, I try to speak with them if not daily, at least weekly. It's a partnership.
Wired: Do your clients want to participate?
Colbert:: There are people who sign up for Twitter and think it's gonna be an awesome experience, and then they feel completely overwhelmed. I'm the training wheels or the orientation leader to get them started. I create a structure behind the scenes. My goal is that when I leave, they can do it on their own.
Wired: If being on Twitter is so overwhelming, why do they even bother?
Colbert:: It's a great opportunity for them to shape their image—everything they put out there is generated by them or someone on their team. They're not going to get that in mainstream media. A publication will get fixated on one thing about them. Say they were a child actor who now wants to get into the mommy mafia [mothers who freely tweet strong, motherly opinions]. Twitter is a great place to cultivate that.
Wired: Is that a specific example of something you helped with?
Colbert:: It's a modified example of a real experience.
Wired: What does Twitter training involve?
Colbert: You sit down on a Sunday and plan for the week so you can time everything and then post throughout. You create private lists of people you should be following or responding to so you can develop relationships. All that happens behind the scenes.
Wired: Once you have a plan in place, how do you go about embodying the voice of a client?
Colbert: People ask me frequently if I have a theater background. Because somehow embodying a voice to them is what Daniel Day-Lewis does. That's not what I do at all. I ask clients what they're interested in. Then it's a matter of looking at how they compose tweets already. If they haven't, I'll send them links and bits of information and ask them how they would tweet it. It's a great exercise and gives me an idea of little things, like if they use emoticons with a nose—which I wouldn't do myself—or if they abbreviate certain words, which I would never do. I hate abbreviations.
Wired: How much time would you say you spend tweeting every day?
Colbert: I just finished a yearlong contract where it was two to four hours a day. Even if I'm only posting five tweets a day, if they include pushes for products or outside links it takes time to look up and create a tweet that's in their voice.
Wired: How do you charge?
Colbert: I usually do a flat rate because I'm bouncing between accounts. I'm not working by the hour. My goal is to deliver on metrics the client and I set. If that means putting in more time, that's what I do. And it's not just tweeting. It's making sure their HootSuite account is intact, making lists for them, and getting them comfortable with Twitter. There's a lot of strategy.
Wired: How can one tell if a favorite celebrity has a ghost tweeter?
Colbert: There are celebrity accounts I can think of that are clearly ghost tweets. Usually I can tell when the feed goes from an informal voice to a formal one. You can tell when a feed has been taken over by a publicist.
Wired: Are there other blunders in terms of voice?
Cobert: No one likes the person who only talks about herself, in real life or on the Internet. A fashionista who's publishing a cookbook needs to connect with foodies without ignoring fashion types—the balance comes through a consistent voice.
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