Should People Pay Tweeters to Post Commercial Messages?

There’s a new tool available for advertisers in that they can pay twitter users – called tweeters – to post their commercial messages as tweets.

Is this a good idea?

M-m-m-m, no. People are increasingly savvy and sophisticated and I think they’d sniff out the lack of authenticity in a New York minute. This whole idea smacks of old-time marketing funneled through new-time media. The model will break the first or second time it’s tried because the underlying philosophies are the antithesis of each other and therefore incompatible.

And then….what happens to the valuable Twitter reputations of those involved? They become tarnished, mistrusted, void, or are viewed as insincere which is a death knell in social media.

More than ever, when someone tweets or publishes something, the recipients want to know the sender’s motives? Who are they? Are they thinking of me – or those with needs or interests like mine? Or, are the more focused on their ends and purposes? If it’s the latter, the gimme-gimme types, they will be told in subtle form….to move along.

To view my response in Linked in and the responses of others, you may go here