Your Favourite TV Characters are all ATwitter

Kevin Rose gave his cold a twitter account (which has 800+ followers!). Jason Calcanais’s dogs both have twitter accounts. Both of these make me roll my eyes, but it’s not entirely surprising given the egos on both men.

No, what I am finding interesting is the number of television show characters with twitter accounts, and who are twittering, in character. And interacting with viewers, in character.

I was first followed by Betty Draper, a character from Mad Men. She and her "friends" had me fooled at first – they’re pretty good at remaining in character. It struck me as odd at first though – why her bio said she was "The Real Mrs. Donald Draper", and her site in her profile goes to a blog "Welcome to the Drapers", also written in character. Even the kids have Twitter accounts.

I’m not a fan of the show – in fact, I’ve never even seen it – so after following for a little while and realizing what was going on, I unfollowed and went on my merry way. But, with 9500+ followers, there’s obviously lots of people who are fans of the show.

I didn’t make much of it at first, until I found Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood, on Twitter as well. She’s there, Bill The Vampire, Eric Northman, Pam, Sam Merlotte, Jason, and other characters are all Twittering. I’d seen the Drapers interact with people a little, but the Bon Temps crew was new to Twitter, and I wanted to see how, and if they responded.

I struck up a conversation with Sookie, and not only good a DM from her, but also had a complete conversation about the Bon Temps shifters, the Vampires and more. I also talked to Eric recently.

All this character twittering makes me wonder. It makes me wonder if this is intended as a loyalty builder for fans – as only fans would even know who Sookie is (her bio says "I’m just a waitress.") or would want to engage her in conversation. I also wondered whether or not this was intended as a way to increase ratings, and if it was, how that was working out.

Maybe it’s all of these things – or maybe it’s simply a fabulous use of social media tools to help support a brand. The way that we’ve all been working to get other brands to do.

Have you bumped into any other characters on Twitter? Or, which or your favourite characters would you like to see on Twitter?

[image source: cropped screen shot from Twitter]

Tags: Twitter, True Blood, TV Characters, Mad Men, Sookie Stackhouse, Betty Draper, HBO, The Vampire Bill, Eric Northman, Sam Merlotte, Jason Stackhouse