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That Lot

How to be a ghost tweeter: Five tips for working on social media for a brand

By David Levin | co-founder

October 30, 2014 | 5 min read

Hello, I’m David Levin. I’m co-founder of That Lot and I tweet for a living. I tweet for brands, TV shows and a pub. Some call this “ghost tweeting”, which is handy cos The Drum wanted a social media article that somehow related to Halloween. So in perhaps the most tenuous Halloween article of all time, here are my top tips to ghost tweeting (come on, let’s go with it)…

Have I Got News For You tweet

1: Carve a character (like you’d carve a pumpkin)

When you’re tweeting as a brand, TV show or anything other than yourself, it’s important to have a voice or character in mind. When I tweet as @the_dolphin_pub, for example, I’m a 1990s R&B-loving drunk, sweary idiot. The more you can humanise your tweets, the better you’ll be as a ghost. So basically, be a human ghost.

2: Always tweet as the right ghost

If, like me, you have a number of accounts on your phone, Tweetdeck etc – always double-check that you’re about to tweet as the right one. Tweeting a drunk naked selfie from the account you run for, say, Barclays, will probably lead to you being given your ghostly marching orders. The only time I’ve tweeted from the wrong account is when I tweeted the below from The Dolphin. The other way round would’ve been the stuff of nightmares.

3: Ride the wave of topicality (like you’d ride a broomstick) Dipping your toe into topical events can be a good way to lure more (bloody) eyeballs to your account. As a brand, it’s about entering a conversation that lots of people are having and putting your own spin on it. We recently took over the Have I Got News For You account (@haveigotnews) account, which is entirely topical. Here’s a tweet that one of our team did during the Lord Freud fiasco…

4: Be full of tricks and treats

Part of being a good ghost tweeter is writing good tweets obviously, but there’s a lot more you can do in 140 characters. Doing something a bit different will help you cut through the noise (yes, like a pumpkin). One of our team, Katya, does drawings in 140 characters. This is one she did when we took over Virgin Media’s @VMLoves account for The Commonwealth Games… .

5: Repeat your awesome mwahahashtags

Unlike a gruesome zombie, Twitter moves at an alarming pace. But despite its transience, it’s good to keep people coming back to your account for certain things. On Guardian Soulmates (@guardian_SM), we do #datingtips every day

When I was tweeting as Rufus The Hawk during Wimbledon, it was mainly about hawk-related hashtags…

And I do quite a lot of Twitter quizzes (this one trended)…

And so concludes my ghostly tips.

Fangs for reading (okay, I’ll stop now).

David Levin, co-founder of That Lot, tweets for himself at @davidlevin123

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