An intriguing story hitting my inbox today is that members of Michael Jackson’s family paid USocial to buy and add 25,000 Twitter followers to the official “in memory of” Twitter account.
It’s not clear from the report I read exactly when this deal occurred, or how successful it was, but it’s surprising that the account only has around 30,000 followers. I’m surprised it didn’t have more organic adds, despite the fact that it’s only been online since 7th July this year.
Then again, three tweets in one month isn’t exactly scintillating stuff. It’s also worth noting that the account doesn’t have a Twitter “Verified” badge, but I suppose granting it one would be a rather special, and slightly macabre, case.
CEO of uSocial, Leon Hill, said that the company had been “in touch with someone in his family recently who tasked us with conducting a Twitter campaign on an account relating to him”.
Does the worldwide pop icon really need a lot of help gaining Twitter followers? What does the family intend to do with the account? (Not much, it seems, if the past month is anything to go by). It seems just to be a pointer to Michael’s memorial page and YouTube channel.
Last year, USocial got into trouble with, and ignored a cease and desist notice from, Digg over its paid social bookmarking service.
