Ghost tweeting is here to stay. Here's what you need to know!

• My client wants to start a Twitter feed for this business but doesn't want to manage it himself. I understand that this isn't uncommon and is actually called "ghost tweeting." Can you tell me a little about this and what drawbacks if any doing this may have for my clients and their respective brands?

Answer: Ghost tweeting got almost as much attention as Twitter itself when popular Twitter user Guy Kawasaki (http://twitter.com/Guykawasaki) admitted that he had assistants create many of his Twitter posts. It was called unethical, genius and everything in-between by the social media community at large. He disclosed his use of Twitter ghostwriters in January of 2009 and followed it up with an extensive question and answer post on his blog in July of last year. The concept, and Guy's use of it, has been a hotbed of talk across the blogosphere ever since.

Guy's use of ghostwriters certainly isn't unique. Many CEOs, celebrities and online marketers use ghostwriters for a variety of different writing tasks, taking on the writing credit as their own. However, this has resulted in a rise of criticism by users of Twitter (and other forms of social media) who believe they should be following the conversations of real people and not their PR proxie...