Celebs Who Tweet

photo courtesy of Alexandre Lemieux , flickr

Wanna know what Ashton Kutcher was up to yesterday? Before I give you a chance to answer that potentially loaded question, I’m just gonna tell you: He stopped in on his wife’s (Demi Moore, for those who aren’t in the know) photo shoot and was considering eating crepes but told himself he needed to work out instead. Is this too much information coming from Perez Hilton or US Weekly? Nope… he told me himself.

How, you might ask? Sadly, I must disclose that I do not have any type of celebrity connection; the closest I have is a friend related to Sarah Fisher and an aunt who is a dead ringer for Sheryl Crow. Truth be told, Ashton told me (along with 228,475 of his followers) on Twitter. Under the user name @aplusk, he tweets up a storm about a wide range of topics: His hopes legislation protecting exploited children will pass, books he recommends and what the weather is like in L.A. Celeb that he is, Kutcher also pumps out tweets relating to his famous friends. Recently he has posted a video featuring stylist Rachel Zoe, included links to pics of his wife and talked about meeting Jack (Nicholson?) at the Oscars.

For those who don’t know, this is one of the fastest-growing social networking sites on the Web. Users have 140 characters to answer one question: What are you doing? And answer they do – Kutcher is not the only celeb to take advantage of this microblogging site. Many more have jumped on the bandwagon, realizing this is free publicity that they can control. The ever-growing list of famous (famous being used loosely here) twitterers includes Tina Fey, MC Hammer, Britney Spears, Lance Armstrong, Barack Obama, Michael Phelps and Snoop Dogg – just to name a few. Granted, some of these accounts are maintained by someone other than the star (and when they are, it’s pretty obvious – tweets promote upcoming events and are not too exciting). But there are some – Kutcher’s, for example – that seem pretty legit.

Those who are up to date on social media realize the potential business drivers of Twitter. However, this site has other advantages: it can really humanize people, celebs included. In our celebrity-crazed society, fans can read what their favorite stars are really up to (provided the user really is who he claims to be!). Twitter provides a peek into the lives of people we want to know more about – famous or not. People love to learn about other people, and Twitter can share snippets of people’s lives in real time… doesn’t get much better than that.