Prune Juice Media

Romney Gets Called Out For Possibly Buying Twitter Followers

Posted on 23. Jul, 2012 by Stevie in Election 2012

Is Mitt Romney trying to be slick on the “Internets” and purchasing Twitter followers? (AP Photo by Charles Dharapak)

This is a weird, but not totally impossible, story from the campaign trail.

Buried under the headlines of the Aurora shootings and how the candidates are responding to the tragedy was a piece about social media in the presidential campaign.

It seems as if Mitt Romney has experienced an unexplained jump in Twitter followers in recent days. He went from gaining around 3,000 new followers daily to over 23,000 on July 21 alone. Social media monitoring site, 140Elect.com, noticed the spike and reported it. Romney’s people claim they have calls into the folks at Twitter headquarters seeking an explanation for the rise in followers.

It’s not that Mitt Romney cannot get Twitter followers. The problem was with how fast he got them. Honestly, I don’t put it past Romney’s people to buy followers. They are trying to win an election at all costs.

In the social media world, it’s a low-blow to be accused of buying followers. Twitter is a place where people respect others more because of the grassroots following they are able to build on their own (i.e., the Obama campaign’s commanding use of Twitter since 2008). If people can simply buy their way to Twitter relevance, it defeats the purpose of the social media tool.

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ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW: 

Do you believe the Romney campaign bought Twitter followers to increase their audience size?

Tags: 140elect.com, Barack Obama, followers, Mitt Romney, president, Twitter