Ron's Twitter: 60k followers. Newt Gingrich: 1.3mill. How?

[Dave Aiello]

Why isn't Ron's official twitter being taken seriously? Why is this extremely useful tool not being taken advantage of? It opens up a whole new world of potential supporters. NEWT has 1.3million followers somehow! He's obviously employed people who know what they're doing, and he surely knows the importance of a strong twitter presence.

[tangent4ronpaul]

What's his twitter ID?

Seriously - RepRonPaul is the one I'm finding and it has 47,200 followers, not 60K. What account are you looking at?

Also, this account seems more for his constituents, not a presidential campaign account AFAICT from reading a few posts. He didn't tweet his announcement this morn.

If the official campaign is reading, RonPaul2012 is still available.

[Sola_Fide]

Bump.

[messana]

http://twitter.com/#!/repronpaul

Is this it? He doesn't even have 60k followers.

[S.Shorland]

Gingrich is a bigger twit?

[Aldanga]

Twitter.com/RonPaul and Twitter.com/RepRonPaul are his two accounts. The first is newer, more focused on the campaign, I think.

[WorldonaString]

http://www.google.com/search?q=ron+p...=0CCkQ8QkoAzAA

Yeah..been following this...not enough supporters posting positive reactions...

[james1906]

Gingrich is a bigger twit?

+rep

[olehounddog]

Gingrich is a bigger twit?

And after all this time me thinking he was a $#@!.

[Legend1104]

Sorry but Twitter is not big where I live. Facebook is the big social media in my circle.

[specsaregood]

Ron's Twitter: 60k followers. Newt Gingrich: 1.3mill. How?
Why isn't Ron's official twitter being taken seriously? Why is this extremely useful tool not being taken advantage of? It opens up a whole new world of potential supporters. NEWT has 1.3million followers somehow! He's obviously employed people who know what they're doing, and he surely knows the importance of a strong twitter presence.

How? This is how:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/02/fo...n-says-untrue/

An anonymous former staffer spilled the beans to Gawker, saying the Gingrich campaign pays outside companies to generate Twitter followers.

“Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them,” the staffer wrote.” As you might guess, Newt is most decidedly one of the people to which these agencies cater.”

The former staffer said about 80 percent of Gingrich’s more than 1.3 million Twitter followers are inactive or dummy accounts generated by agencies.

“If you simply scroll through his list of followers you’ll see that most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated,” the staffer continued. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/02/fo...n-says-untrue/

[sailingaway]

Newt was speaker, it is like Obama being President. More followers. Plus those who believe in personal privacy like neither twitter nor facebook. Fact.

LOL! @ specsaregood

Ron's campaign account is @RonPaul by the way...

[ChristianAnarchist]

Newt was speaker, it is like Obama being President. More followers. Plus those who believe in personal privacy like neither twitter nor facebook. Fact.

Word...

[erowe1]

So, none of you have heard about this yet?
http://gawker.com/5826645/most-of-ne...owers-are-fake

Never mind. I missed Spec's post.

[RonPaulFanInGA]

So, none of you have heard about this yet?
http://gawker.com/5826645/most-of-ne...owers-are-fake

Never mind. I missed Spec's post.

But it says that at least 10% of Gingrich's followers are legit: which is still 130,000 to Paul's 60,000.

Also, at this stage, this is nothing more than an allegation from a staffer that could very well be bitter and disgruntled. Remember Eric Dondero?

[erowe1]

But it says that at least 10% of Gingrich's followers are legit: which is still 130,000 to Paul's 60,000.

I doubt that many are legit.

It is more than a disgruntled staffer, since anyone can verify that most of the accounts following Newt fit the profile he described. Also, I think there's probably a pretty good statistical case to be made against there being such a disparity between someone's poll results and twitter following.

Finally, the very fact that such a phenomenon exists is in and of itself enough to discount Twitter numbers as an important measure. That's like saying Ron Paul will win because of an online poll.

[scrosnoe]

If Ron Paul want to engage on twitter, he will have to follow back.

[Esoteric]

But it says that at least 10% of Gingrich's followers are legit: which is still 130,000 to Paul's 60,000.

Also, at this stage, this is nothing more than an allegation from a staffer that could very well be bitter and disgruntled. Remember Eric Dondero?

Now it all makes sesnse. He has 130k "legitimate" followers because when you open an account, he is one of the "suggested" people you should follow under "politics", due to his 1.3Mill followers. It's a bit self-fulfilling.

[libertybrewcity]

#twittersucks

[HarryBrowneLives]

"NEWT has 1.3million followers"

...everybody secretly loves to watch a train wreck.

[iGGz]

Because Twitter sucks

[nobody's_hero]

Yeah, I can't keep up with the fads. Years ago it was xanga. Then Myspace. Then Facebook. Now twitter.

If I join twitter, they'll certainly come up with something new. So I've gone as far as facebook hoping that twitter will be the last of this nonsense to pop up.

[libertybrewcity]

Yeah, I can't keep up with the fads. Years ago it was xanga. Then Myspace. Then Facebook. Now twitter.

If I join twitter, they'll certainly come up with something new. So I've gone as far as facebook hoping that twitter will be the last of this nonsense to pop up.

google plus might be the next big thing! yayyayayayay! not.

[Steve-in-NY]

Theres debate if those followers are real or not:

http://gawker.com/5826645/most-of-ne...owers-are-fake
http://mashable.com/2011/08/01/newt-...ter-followers/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...=news/politics
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/20...ter_socialflow

Im sure we'll hear more about tweetgate soon enough.

[justatrey]

Well I guess I've been following the wrong one:

http://twitter.com/#!/RonPaul

This one has only 18k followers.

[VoluntaryAmerican]

Why isn't Ron's official twitter being taken seriously? Why is this extremely useful tool not being taken advantage of? It opens up a whole new world of potential supporters. NEWT has 1.3million followers somehow! He's obviously employed people who know what they're doing, and he surely knows the importance of a strong twitter presence.

You can buy Twitter followers... It's not expensive either. My guess is this what Gingrich did considering his zero % fan base. Will it help him? Probably not.

[mit26chell]

I read somewhere in mainstream news today that Gingrich actually pays people to follow him on Twitter.

There are tons of websites where you can pay certain amounts through PayPal for 30, 100, 300, 1,000, 10,000 etc etc, Twitter followers. The more you buy the cheaper it is per follower.

[Esoteric]

Stephen Colbert just made fun of Ron's lack of twitter followers. He was doing a story on Newt's alleged "fake" twitter followers, and mentioned Bachmann's 66k followers, Romney's 60k, and then made a joke about Ron not knowing what twitter is. It was a bit lighthearted, but still sheds light on our twitter problem.

[acptulsa]

Well, there's something to be said for certainly not having fake twits getting tweeted. But on the other hand, seems like this tool could be useful, if it were used well.

What the campaign needs is someone chock full of both brevity and wit, and skilled at reaching a wide rather than a deliberately narrow audience. Then the tool could actually be useful to them.

[V4Vendetta]

Newt having that many followers on twitter is completely fake - its so obvious their social media admin needs to find a new craft