Rajinikanth on Twitter and a case of social media gone wrong

Monday had two big news stories: Of course one was Narendra Modi’s descent into Amethi; the other was news that Tamil superstar Rajinikanth had finally joined Twitter.

This is the first social media website that he has joined – no Facebook for Rajini Sir – and fans all across India went predictably crazy. If there’s any proof needed of his popularity, it became patently obvious in the immediate and exponential jump in his follower count. Today Rajinikanth has 173,000 followers on Twitter, a pretty big number for some who joined Twitter just a day ago.

In fact, the actor had gained over 10,000 followers without tweeting at all and by the time of his first tweet he had close to 50,0000 followers. His first tweet was a personal one, saying “Salutation to the Lord. Vaṇakkam aṉaivarukkum !! A big thank you to all my fans. Excited on this digital journey.”

But it was all downhill after that. His account was soon flooded with tweets that seemed to be sent out by a bot. The replies to others were standard, there were no re-tweets. It soon became obvious: Rajinikanth was spamming Twitter.

As this piece on SocialSamosa points out, the tweet that most of his early followers received was: “Thank you for being a part of the fan family. Here is an exclusive Kochadaiiyaan poster for you, with a link attached to it.”

Evidently the link and poster wasn’t very exclusive given that his timeline had a high number of these auto-replies. The  tweets have since been deleted.

The poster was part of the marketing strategy for his upcoming live-action animated film Kochadaiiyaan – and that’s alright, but the timing was completely off.

Fluence, the digital media marketing company that was handling his account on Twitter, had got the first rule of social media wrong: Turning a star’s debut on the social media site into a PR stunt is big no-no.

As Harish Bijoor, brand expert and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc told  Economic Times , “I’m thrilled that Rajinikanth has joined Twitter. But I’m disappointed that after the first tweet followers are being bombarded by Kochadaiiyaan posters.”

For Twitter users, it became evident that Rajini wasn’t really handling the account.

And when it comes to Twitter, fans tend to follow stars because they are looking to catch a personal glimpse of the star – get a sense of his or her personality, however PR manufactured or self-edited it may be. Needless to say, auto-bot tweets from someone of Rajinikanth’s stature who inspires rabid devotion are a big turn-off.

For fans who follow celebrities or even politicians, Twitter is more personal than Facebook. Take Amitabh Bachchan, for instance. It’s evident he personally handles his social media account, which is why he has close to 8.6 million followers. He regularly tweets out what he’s thinking – whether wisely or not, as when he preempted Aishwarya’s announcement of her pregnancy. He’s also not afraid to re-tweet interesting observations his fans tweet at him.

Then you have the cricketers like Kevin Pietersen, who aren’t afraid of tweeting out jokes or even having a conversation about which phone to buy, all on Twitter. You can check out his timeline here.

A better way of letting a media agency handle Twitter is to differentiate the personal tweets from the ones sent out by the agency. President Obama’s account, for instance, is handled by a non-profit organisation , and only messages that he personally tweets have  the initials ‘B.O.’ written at the end. Even though it is mostly tweets about this bill or that one, the agency does break the monotony by tweeting out pictures of the President with kids or at a dinner or even saying, " “Tomorrow: @HouseOfCards. No spoilers, please.”

Twitter is a tool to interact with fans, followers, even haters, all in 140 characters. Those who use this very public space in the most personal and fun way are the winners.  It isn’t Rajinikanth’s fault that his agency – which is paid to know better – ruined the most exciting social media debut in recent times. India’s most beloved superhero has finally discovered his kryptonite: Twitter spam.