Interesting post here on social media presences. More specifically, how easy it is to mock one up:
Who is Santiago Swallow? Well, if you have to ask, you’re obviously not keeping in touch with what is going on in the world.
The 42-year-old Swallow was born in Mexico, but then moved to the US to become one of the most revered gurus of the internet age. He has been described as ‘one of the greatest thinkers of the Millennial generation’.
Despite being in his 40s, Swallow retains his youthful appearance – his piercing eyes and blond mullet lend him the look of member of Duran Duran. But don’t be fooled by his image – Swallow is a serious player in new media. His upcoming book is predicted to define a generation. He has wowed delegates with his speeches at the TED and SXSW conferences.
He has more than 85,000 followers on Twitter. Or rather, he did have until Twitter suspended his account this week. But why would Twitter close the account of one of the most brilliant social media minds in the world?
The fact that Santiago Swallow doesn’t exist probably had something to do with it.
More here. This is one major reason why I don’t obsess over my own Twitter follower count, except to use it as a rough rule of thumb to see how many people I should be following: according to Status People (mentioned in the article) I have 10% fake and 24% inactive followers*. And I don’t do any of the things that people do to boost their numbers; what’s happening on all those other accounts?
Via
Lots of folks doing this. RT @anthropocon: Meet Santiago Swallow… the biggest social media star you’ve never heard of buff.ly/ZwwvpL
— Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets) April 21, 2013
Moe Lane
*I assume that at least some of those are because of lists set up by what are essentially read-only accounts, though.