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Martha Stewart, Twitter Maniac
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How do you make guacamole in 140 characters? The homemaking mogul tells The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove why she's chosen Twitter over Facebook and her secret recipe for winning a million followers.
In the escalating rivalry between the two hottest social-networking sites, the gargantuan Facebook and the up-and-coming Twitter, Martha Stewart seems to be taking sides. The multimedia lifestyle mogul is a proud member of Team Twitter.
“I just love it so much more than Facebook,” the 67-year-old Stewart told me this week, as she basked in the triumph of passing the million-follower milestone on her personal Twitter account (as of Wednesday, her followers numbered 1,093,110 and rising). “First of all, you don’t have to spend any time on it, and, second of all, you reach a lot more people. And I don’t have to ‘befriend’ and do all that other dippy stuff that they do on Facebook.”
For the Wild West of the World Wide Web, them’s fightin’ words. But the folks at Facebook—which tried and failed to buy the smaller company for a reported $500 million last November—are keeping their powder dry, at least for now.
Proportionally, Stewart has been getting substantially more bang for the tweet than Sean Combs (Twitter name “iamdiddy”) and Ashton Kutcher (aka “aplusk”).
“I think Martha has built a tremendous fan base and she obviously knows how to use many different ways to communicate with them,” said Brandee Barker, Facebook’s communications director. “I’m a big fan of Martha Stewart and her brand—and I hope she finds more ways to use Facebook.”
Indeed, Stewart tried to walk back her critique in a subsequent phone call to me (after an apparently unhappy Facebook executive privately expressed concern), pointing out that Martha Stewart Omnimedia does plenty of business with the Palo Alto, California-based behemoth and has scheduled a meeting with the Facebook team for early next week.
“I’m not knocking Facebook,” Stewart said. “We use both Facebook and Twitter [at MSO]. They’re very different tools, and I personally don’t use Facebook. I prefer Twitter as a means of mass communication—it’s the Wal-Mart of the Internet.”
Besides, she added, “They’re all going to be owned by the same company eventually.”
Far be it from me to quibble with Stewart’s bold prediction—which, coming from her, is probably savvier than most. But there’s little doubt where her heart is: The screen on her BlackBerry is the window on her soul.
“With minimal effort—and I really mean it: I spend less than five minutes a day on Twitter—I have been able to garner over 1 million followers in a 4½-month period, with very few tweets, by the way,” Stewart told me.
“You have to sort of look at the different accounts and compare,” she said, adding that, proportionately, she has been getting substantially more bang for the tweet than Sean Combs (Twitter name “iamdiddy”) and Ashton Kutcher (aka “aplusk”). If you do the math on a per-tweet basis, Martha is twice as popular as Ashton and more than three times as popular as Diddy.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Of course celebrities like Twitter. It feeds their massive egos with it's hoards of "followers" and, as Martha says, you don't actually have to befriend them or interact with them as you do on facebook....wait a minute, I think I passed 140 characters.
She's entitled to her opinion...celebrities and other busy people probably do feel they have to choose one over the other...both services do take up a lot of time, and FB moreso. But it's not like anyone HAS to spend time on FB with the games, sending things, managing friend requests, etc. Plenty of people ignore all that stuff. Not to mention you can link your Twitter to your Facebook and do both at once. She may not be aware of that. You certainly reach more people if you do both. FB is better for interacting with celebrities, IMHO, as well as seeing photos, videos etc.
Oh you'd be surprised how twitter feeds plenty of egos besides celebs. It seems journalists in particular are very dependant on getting followers. It's kind of embarrassing. And some "reg" people seem to never log off Twiiter. They tweet all day, all the time. They seem obsessed with how many followers they gain (or lose) per day. That's pretty pathetic, yea?
This was a very insightful and informative blog!
thanks martha ... you've just killed Twitter.
It's been two weeks and a day since I asked Facebook to reset my password for a page that I use for my job in public relations. There was a glimmer of hope one day when I was asked to respond to an e-mail, but still nothing. If you go to whitepages.com to look for a telephone number you'll view a few comments from people who have had similar issues.
Facebook soon will go the way of other web sites if it continues to ignore its customers. Twitter isn't a suitable alternative -- yet -- for the work that I do, but at some point in the near future I could figure out a way to get it to work for me. I might have no choice.
"it's the Wal-Mart of the Internet."
This quote says it all, for better or for worse.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Please insert here a snide, sarcastic, yet humorous remark regarding the choice of twitter, facebook, and what Ms. Stewart
thinks about all this.
Thank You.
Martha is not a bellwether of anything -- facebook is a blast.
As Calpoet said, it makes snese for Martha. But makes no sense for those who desire to privately network and share thoughts, feelings, photos with friends. Twitter creeps me out and bores me, far too many non-famous people posting: "I'm going to the grocery store." "Back from the grocery store." "Oops, stubbed my toe."
Oh, Martha. That's just so... lame.
Martha Stewart likes Twitter's instant feedback. OK, but she's already built a brand! Friends in business and ministry, give me your views. How do you build trust with your audience?
By building relationships with them...one at a time!
Tony
Social media should be for socializing, right?
Think again: it's all for marketing horrendous crap to you. Do your patriotic duty, buy buy buy and save the economy. Twitter commands you!
It's MSLO, not MSO
Way to go Martha! So it's not just Tina who's elegant then.... I wrote about this and do have a home for those who value their gravitas. http://blog.famebook.com/famebook/2009/03/twitter-breaks-down-the-wall-betw een-star-and-fans-what-a-nightmare.html
Way to go Martha... Not just Tina Brown who is the last bastion of elegance and sanity! - More here at http://tinyurl.com/d7e58e - Give me a call Martha we do have a new home for you that does make sense and Tina ur ab fab... Jan Founder/ CEO at Famebook
Way to go Martha... Not just Tina Brown who is the last bastion of elegance and sanity! - blogged on this on famebook blog - celebs ruining their gravitas online - Give me a call Martha we do have a new home for you that does make sense and Tina ur ab fab always ... Jan Founder/ CEO at Famebook
Thank you.
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