Madison Avenue's Mad Men Take Over Twitter

Mad Men may take place in 1960s New York, but its devoted fans are as modern and current as they come. Pretty much every character has their own Twitter account, right down to the very minor ones. And each Twitter feed personifies that character's personality and attitude to a tee. Their lingo and the historical references are all from the 1960s while they play dumb to things we know today. My only question is, how the hell do they actually go on Twitter from 1960s Manhattan?

If you can get around that minor issue, they're probably the best TV characters to follow on Twitter, really personifying (in 140 characters or less!) what their character might be doing when they're not on our televisions.

Continuing to tweet in-between seasons, the characters make sure we haven't forgotten about them. We get insight into what Joan's going through during her pregnancy, how the future Mrs. Don Draper (Megan) is planning her upcoming nuptials, and of course, into the very childish mind of Betty Drap-er-Francis. There are character blogs, too. And, the best part of it is it's all completely fan-generated. If that's true, and this isn't some hidden ploy by AMC, they're succeeding even more than expected at building a genuine relationship with their audience. Talk about dedicated fans.

This probably sounds like a nightmare to all you PR professionals who strive to control what information is released and what's said about your clients but let's face it, we're living in a different world now. Where anyone can set up a blog (like me) and banter on about whatever they want (me again). And isn't my Twitter feed my own personal press-release service? I can promote what I want from it and represent myself however I see fit.

So I say, embrace the change and work together with these creative fans. Free promotion is great for the brand, and for social media marketers such as myself, fan-created content is like living the dream - when the audience itself is driving interaction and engagement with the brand.