Someone Bring a Media Relations Agency to the Rescue
Celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Ashton Kutcher have taken it upon themselves to cut out the public relations agency’s by using Twitter and Qik to communicate to their fans.
Kutcher has earned himself many admirers and critics. The early part of February Kutcher used the video on his mobile to record the paparazzi commenting not very kindly about his girlfriend, Demi Moore, the marked difference between this and other media coverage is that he was in total control. There were no public relations agency representative involvement or paparazzi, this was ‘straight from the horses mouth’ so to speak.
The public thrive on gossip and the more real time, with no editing involved, the better, however, while celebrities are embracing the latest innovations in media technology having unedited and raw materials being available on a global scale may be more detrimental to their audience base than they are expecting.
Many members of the public are welcoming these raw and uncut real life activities, which have not been subjected to updates and edits by the public relations representatives. Whether people agree with what is being said or shown is in some ways irrelevant, the key point here is that without input from PR reps, the celebrities are leaving themselves wide open to very personal verbal attacks from the public.
Interactions and communications with the public via media such as Twitter and Qik are believed by many to be applauded, however, extreme care should be taken as an 18 year old hacker who has a history of celebrity pranks agreed to be interviewed as other hackers had implicated that he was responsible for the recent multiple high- profile Twitter accounts being hacked.
The hacker, who is known as GMZ has told reporters that cracking the Twitter site was easy, mainly due to the unlimited number of quick fire log in attempts he was able to make. GMZ found that he had managed to hack into a Twitter staff member giving him access to people’s accounts. Not wanting to discriminate himself he informed Digital Gangster, a group of hackers and former hackers, that he would provide access to any Twitter account on request. Further more, he posted a video of his Twitter hack to prove that he had administrative access to Twitter.
To cut a long and complex story short, the following week Twitter accounts belonging to Obama, Britney Spears, FoxNews and others, began tweet messages. GMZ says that he believes he was in Twitter for a couple of hours before the administrators threw him out.
So, while people like GMZ and Digital Gangster are about, and some may say long may they remain, is it wise for celebrities to be using communicate tools such as Twitter and Qik without using a media relations agency?
The sceptics who condone edited media relations agency methods may well have to re-think if they are going to believe that the communications really are coming from the person they think they are. While a media relations agency may not be able to have complete autonomy over what is published about a person or company they are representing, they may be in a more favourable position to provide effective representation so that celebrities don’t get the urge to go out on their own!
