"Mad Men" on Twitter: A Fan Phenomenon

I knew the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency was on the cutting edge of technology when, in the premiere episode of the second season of Mad Men, a Xerox machine arrived at the office. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before the team started micro-blogging their activities on Twitter. Twitter users were excited to see the Mad Men characters sharing such musings as “I believe that some people are naturally more creatively inclined than others, but anyone can work at becoming more creative.”

Considering AMC’s $25 million marketing campaign in advance of the second season premiere, it seemed the Twitter personas were just another effort to engage with fans. According to AMC, what seemed a clever marketing effort is actually fan phenomenon. On August 13th, Don Draper began posting. He was soon joined by junior copywriter, Peggy Olson; Account Executive, Pete Campbell; Senior Partner, Bertram Cooper; Office Manager, Joan Holloway; Copywriter, Paul Kinsey; Art Director, Sal Romano; Don’s wife, Betty Draper and even Don Draper’s latest temptation, Bobbie Barrett. In just over a week’s time, Don Draper has gained over 800 followers.

What’s most exciting, as a fan of the series, is how three-dimensional each of the characters are, responding to fan “tweets,” communicating with each other and even sharing news coverage about the series. This morning, Sal Romano shared his excitement over being featured in an article on Playboy.com, saying, “It's rare that the art director ends up in print himself, but on occasion: http://tinyurl.com/5k2fr9.” Don Draper is all out of sorts following his car accident on last night’s episode, saying, “Didn't sleep really. Kept dreaming of the crash.” I asked him how his injured arm was doing. He replied, "It's better, but not back to normal. Thank you for your concern."

Judging by the variety of client applications the characters use to update their accounts - Twhirl and Tweetbar, to name a few - my guess is the user pages are created by several fans, rather than one. Now if only I can figure out how they’ve downloaded Tweetbar to their typewriters.