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Questions arise over Dancing tweets

Hmmmm. Were the tweets broadcast on Dancing with the Stars 'authentic' or just part of network social marketing?

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Last Sunday night Seven added tweets to Dancing with the Stars.

FrankStreet11: ”Nathan bowls a maiden over.”
Tamo-Mamo: ”Dan is the MAN!”

But now there are doubts about their authenticity.

Earlier Tamo-Mamo tweeted: ”Ronan [Keating] on #dwts … can’t wait,” and ”Where can I buy Brynne’s frock?”

But the Sun Herald reports that Leslie Nassar from social media monitoring service TweeVee TV found some of the Twitter accounts with tweets broadcast were created within an hour of each other – between 2.36pm and 3.32pm – on Sunday afternoon.’

”I noticed that some of the ones selected were from Twitter accounts that were very, very new – no followers, very few tweets,” he said.

Five out of 17 tweets broadcast came from ”unusual Twitter profiles”, Mr Nassar said.

The newspaper sent messages to all 5 of them. As of last night none had replied. As of yesterday afternoon, the accounts have been inactive since the broadcast – apart from a single one-word tweet about the weather sent from @Gabbzb09 on Friday.

James Griffin, a partner at social media consultant SR7, said all it was unusual for a user to ”go to the effort to sign up, tweet three comments and abandon the account”.

A publicist for Dancing with the Stars declined to address questions about the authenticity of the accounts, saying: ”Yahoo!7 and the production team selected a range of tweets with the #dwts hashtag based on what was trending and put them to air as is standard industry practice.”

TV Tonight has previously noted that tweets broadcast on The Xtra Factor, My Kitchen Rules and Dancing with the Stars have been universally positive and not critical of the contestants, host or show.

This was despite Twitter coming to the defence of Brynne Edelsten last week after criticism from judge Josh Horner and a sly dig from Sonia Kruger.

21 Responses

  1. I’m not at all surprised there are fake tweets.
    Just like when a popular radio station was found to have a small number of people who regularly called up the station when required for competitions, listener comments etc using fake names and fake life stories… their reward: a booty of prizes… our (other listeners) reward: entertainment based on a perverse view into other people’s lives & opinions (or so we think!)… I’m trying to not be cynical.

  5. *Clap Clap* channel seven, so intelligent!! Are you really that sad??
    I love Channel Nine. (I am not created by the Nine Television Network) hahaha
    I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t more out there.

  6. On top of this, several Twitter accounts from Seven talent are run my publicity. You will note how many “can’t wait” to watch Seven programming.

  8. Of course it was fake. No one who seriously watches Dancing with the stars (or even AGT for that matter) knows how to use the internet let alone watch tv and tweet at the same time. Maybe if they teaching computer skills in nursing homes…..

  9. Who would do such a thing?

    May I add TVTonight is my favourite website. David Knox’s reviews and interviews can’t be beat. When I want up the minute television news I go to TVTonight.com.au

  11. I have a twitter account and i only use it on a minor basis. I haven’t tweeted since the Logies so what does that make me? They probably are false but some people don’t tweet all the time. I know i don’t.

  12. It wouldn’t surprise me. It’s certainly more believable than the supposed ‘outrage’ over the whole Brynne thing. It is a good tactic though (if a little/a lot dishonest), as the general public would probably never find out that the accounts were fake. In a way, it’s a bit like a dictator controlling/manufacturing public opinion through control of the media (obviously on a much smaller scale).

  14. It wouldn’t surpirse me and i really wouldn’t be surprised if the whole brynne edelsten controversy with the judges was a huge set up as well. Its good for DWTS – to get viewers, it’s also good for Brynne as it makes people feel sorry for her and that is what she was after people to accept and like her.

    I never normally watch this show but as there was nothing else on at that time last week i saw brynne dance and then steve brack’s son. Both were pretty hopeless but brackies son didn’t cop it anywhere near as roughly as Brynne did. I smell a rat. Definitely will not be watching again even if there is nothing else on.

  16. I have an account that I created on Sunday hours before the show was on. I tweeted and haven’t used it since as the show hasn’t been on since.

  17. Amazing how social media has been turned into a malevolent force by cynical PR people for what must only be a few extra, and temporary, ratings points.
    In return Twitter has lost the last bit of credibity it had.
    You can’t believe a thing you see on TV.
    Not one thing.

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