While Mallika Sherawat loves the fact that she can tweet in her pajamas, other celebs revel in the personal freedom online, says Norbert Rego
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
THE world is getting smaller as people from across the globe get closer. Today, the entertainment industry uses the social web as a communication tool to reach out to its fans and attract new audiences from across the world.
For Priyanka Chopra, the online space has become an easy interface to chat with her well-wishers. “It allows me to interact one-on-one with my fans and get direct feedback — good, bad and ugly — on everything I’m doing. It’s
a great reality check!”
Priyanka is today one of the biggest brands from Bollywood on cyber space. Between Facebook and Twitter, she has a fan base of over 100,000 fans. Her account @priyankachopra (on Twitter) is operated by her directly, whilst @teampriyanka is handled by her team which provides regular updates on Priyanka to her fan base.
Mallika Sherawat was the first star from Asia to be invited to Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Says Mallika, “The Hisss producers asked me to join Twitter and I grudgingly did so. But now I look forward for an interaction with ‘tweeps’. It’s fun to interact with lots of different people, which is hard to do in person, because of my busy schedule. Here, I don’t have to wear a burkha, I can meet and tweet in my pajamas! I think some people tweet things to me they would never say in person. They’re more daring online, and then I get really sassy!”
Miss India World 2009 Pooja Chopra, who blogs on www.timesofindia.com’s itimes, says, “Whenever I am low, I visit my site. The feedback and views that I get from my fans bring a smile on my face and lighten me up most of the time.” She was swamped by feedback, as hundreds of readers wrote in after she revealed how her mother brought her up singlehandedly, after her father abandoned the family. Payal Rohatgi is happy being on itimes too. “As actors, we live in our own world, but it is better to have a reality check, as social networking sites are a combination of
the elderly and the young.”
Deepika Padukone, who stays connected with her friends through Yahoo, says, “Personalisation adds a touch of self-expression and makes you stand out from the rest.”
Whenever actor Koena Mitra is bored, she loves chatting with her friends on Facebook. “I believe my fans are my best critics. Their suggestions add a lot of value.” Actor and model Kim Sharma uses the opportunity to connect with “long-lost friends”.
Singer and model Anushka Manchanda loves Twitter and admits it’s a great PR tool. But, it’s also more, “The freedom to say what I want, without being misquoted, minute by minute, is amazing. However, it’s very narcissistic at the end of the day, and how seriously you take it is up to you.”
Pooja Misrra, veejay, actress and model, is active online but has encountered fakes as well. She says, “My online account is in my name, but there are many fakes which have been opened in my name and they even use my picture.”
Fake ids online are not uncommon. For instance, the Twitter account, ostensibly maintained by Nandan Nilekani, chief of the government’s Universal ID project, wasn’t his original, but a fake, which was later suspended by the site administrator.
The plot is thickening. And as stars blatantly promote their films online, production houses are getting cautious. Hollywood stars like Cameron Diaz and Mike Myers are being banned from using Twitter, as studios fear that they will unwittingly reveal secret details of their film projects.
Has this trend caught up here? Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt says, “Hollywood has become cautious about protecting their products. Of late, even in India, we have become careful. Some studios have inserted clauses in their contracts forbidding the use of such sites. I feel actors should behave in a responsible way. Alternate media should be used intelligently.”
Reportedly, actor Emraan Hashmi had put up the Tum Mile pictures prematurely on Twitter. Is he more cautious now? “Well, that was a case of miscommunication. But yes, one has to be vigilant. Next time, I would consult my directors to avoid such incidents that would create a problem for my own film.”
What do the site managers have to say? Meenal Balar, international marketing manager, Facebook, says, “Our pages present celebrities with great opportunities to engage with their fans through sharing information about upcoming shows or uploading snapshots of behind-thescenes images.”
However, Rahul Kulkarni, product manager, Orkut, states, “Celebrities are just like normal people — they want to keep in touch with people they care about. They’re normally low-key. They do keep up with fans by checking out fan communities.” Today, the mobile medium is a powerful weapon for celebrities to engage with their large number of fans. So, log in and catch up with your favourite celebrities online!
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