UPDATE: Twitter Took Down Kellerman’s account, now it’s restored.
Melissa Kellerman is the same person talked about in this video below, and just because she was tackled by Cowboys Tight End Jason Witten accidentally tackled her while running out of bounds.
Melissa seemed to enjoy the entire happening, and the World wanted to know more about her. So much so, that, according to Darren Rovell (who beat this blogger in looking at Kellerman’s Twitter accounts’ growth rate before it was terminated) gained 1,000 new Twitter followers in just over a day.
The Dallas Cowboys ordered Kellerman to take her account, thus costing her $7,500 in Twitter Follower value according to an estimate of the value of a typical Twitter Follower by MediaBistro’s Lauren Dugan.
Lauren Dugan explains that the figure (which she questions) was asserted in a lawsuit against YouTuber Noah Kravitz (who I interviewed in 2009 at a YouTube Community Meetup), and because Noah started a Twitter account for a company called @PhoneDog_Noah and then switched the name of the account to @NoahKravitz while remaining active in using it.
The company says that each Twitter Follower is worth $2.5, and while some may argue that Twitter Followers are worth far less, the fact is that the more followers one has, the more impressions that Twitter account produces.
What is an impression? It’s simply the act of viewing, in this case, a tweet. That act increases as one adds followers, simply because one tweet goes on the accounts of each of the number of followers, and is seen by their Twitter Followers.
Then, there’s what kind of interaction could come out of the Twitter tweet. It could be an offer to model for a watch company, or a car company. It may lead to a TV appearance. All of those possibilities are opened up by being on Twitter.
So, while the value of Twitter Followers is subject to debate, it can not be denied that each Twitter Follower has a value greater than pennies on the dollar.
Regardless, The Cowboys took all that away from not just Melissa Kellerman, but their own pocketbook,since she works for the team. It’s yet another demonstration of how little many people, including large brands like the Dallas Cowboys, understand new media. the Cowboys could have made a new website page and connected it to her Twitter account, just toke monetary advantage of the new eyeballs.
Stay tuned.