I understand fully you were not subjected to ghost tweeting nor was there a ‘leak’ of this news created elsewhere. The first part of that paragraph (scenario) I wanted to lead my readers to think that this was an “actual” major occurrence with a well respected individual whom was not being ‘authentic’, which was the point of your test. I continued by expressing the different reactions your readers had experienced before ending the paragraph disclosing that it was indeed just an experiment.

Maybe I should have worded it differently or quoted parts of your post into mine, but my intention was to set it up as if it were actually true and for my reader to click through to read your post for themselves.

“they were duped” statement; I took this from a remark in your posts’ comments. This was the individuals initial feeling but after reading your post was applauding.

I hope this clears things up. If not, feel free to contact me via email. ericungs@gmail.com

First, I was not ‘subjected to ghost tweeting.” I specifically slected my friend and fellow PR pro Leigh Fazzina to ghost tweet as me (as part of the experiment). Second, there was no “news or news leak.” I wrote the post and posted it immediately after the chat was over to let everyone know of the experiment. Third, I haven’t heard from anyone that they were “up in arms, felt they had just been punk’d or were were duped.” Can you show me/tell me where those comments appear so I can reach out to those folks? Thanks!

“Recently there was an event where Beth Harte, author of the Harte of Marketing blog, was subjected to ghost tweeting during a weekly twitter chat without any type of disclosure. News of this ‘leak’ created all types of reactions; some hadn’t even noticed, others noticed that the tone of her tweets seemed different, and others were up in arms and felt they had just been punk’d – they were duped. The source of this leak was a post she (Beth Harte) had written and informed her audience it was a ‘unscientific test’ on authenticity, trust, and transparency. Brilliantly done — the comments from the post speak for themselves.”