Lisbeth Tanz is an experienced freelance writer, editor, and Social Media Maven who can be found on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and at The Hired Pen.

It was a natural progression. I’ve worked as a ghostwriter for years, so employing my same skills in social media seemed like a slam dunk. And don’t kid yourself – this is done more often than you might think (not that I have any statistics at hand to support this notion). I mean, many of the books you see written by celebrities are often written by ghostwriters – so it’s a given that really busy people hire ghost tweeters. Unless you’re Ashton Kutcher, that is.

Tweeting for someone else isn’t hard, but it does take finesse. After all, the beauty of Twitter are the relationships that are forged through the back-and-forth of tweeting, retweeting, @replies and direct messages. I will admit to initially feeling a bit insincere when I responded to someone – and they thought I was the person they were addressing. I’ve gotten over that. This is, after all, business. Besides, if something is truly personal, I can always pull the business owner in for help.

While ghost tweeting isn’t hard, you have to be prepared to be in it for the long haul. That’s why there are several questions I consider before taking on a ghost Twitter client. These questions help us both understand the nature and scope of the project and determine if a ghost Tweeter is a fit for the business. Some of these questions include:

• Do you understand Twitter well enough to take on this project? Okay, I only asked myself this the very first time, but it’s worth asking. Tweeting for someone else is different than tweeting for yourself. You have to be able to demonstrate what you’re doing for the client (how it benefits their business) since they are paying you for your expertise. If you don't know the ins and outs of Twitter, this could be difficult.

• What do you need to know about your client and their business to effectively represent them on Twitter? Some businesses may be harder than others to ghost tweet. If you don’t have a technical background, but have a client with a technical product, you will likely need to bone up on it so you have more than a rudimentary understanding of what it is, what it does and why it exists. Only you can decide if you want to delve that deeply into someone else’s business. Additionally, you need to understand their motivation for being on Twitter. Run, run away fast if their sole purpose is to “increase sales.” This is nearly impossible to track, so you’re starting out on the losing end of an unfair bet with a client like this.  

• Will you be the sole tweeter, will there be a team and will your client add their own tweets? I encourage my clients to tweet themselves for a two-fold reason. One – it gets them involved in the process and two – I get to read their tweets and gain a bit more insight into how they like to phrase things and what interests them. And, if there are other Tweeters on the team, you’ll need to coordinate in some fashion so you aren’t overlapping one another.

• How much time will you spend on their account each day / each week responding to other tweeters, retweeting, direct messaging, finding new followers, etc? This is important to determine ahead of time and could impact your bottom line. You’ll first need to understand how much time you anticipate spending on each type of task. Finding followers is usually more arduous than retweeting, for example. Since you’re already a Twitter expert, you probably already have a good idea of the time spent on each with your own account. Yes, your experience does translate. 

• How will you track your progress? Even though the end game is to create relationships with people who are (or say they are) interested in what your client has to say, providing hard numbers may be difficult. Certainly, the client can track new customer inquiries, asking each “where they heard about us,” but this is an imperfect science. Ah, the bugaboo. How DO you measure progress on Twitter? Number of followers? Number of retweets? Number of @replies? There are, uh, a number of tracking tools available to Twitter users who need their numbers fix, but it really comes down to relationships. Pay attention to followers, provide them with interesting, insightful information (don’t just talk at them), thank them when appropriate and you’ll increase what Digital Media & Social Marketing Strategist George Benckenstein calls “Return on Influence" – an investment of a different sort.

Just for fun, here are a few tools. (Truly just a few. There are a gazillion out there.)

• Number of followers/following:  Twittercounter.com provides a nice visual graph that any business owner can appreciate. It shows the growth (or not) of both followers and following.

• Twitter rank:  Twitterholic.com provides a snapshot of how your Twitter account measures up the everyone else based a number of factors that aren’t completely clear. However, you do end up with a rank within the entire Twitterverse and within your local community (which is really cool).

• In-Depth Statistics:  For the true techy, Twitalyzer.com provides measurements on five key areas:  Influence, Signal, Generosity, Velocity and Clout. Can be helpful, but it’s unclear how large the Twitterverse they pull from is currently.

• Retweets:  Nothing says “I like you” like a retweet. Retweetrank.com provides a percentage ranking of your retweetability. According to their information, they troll the entire Twitterverse. I still say take the number with a grain of salt.

Do know that Ghost Tweeting can be fun and lucrative with the right clients. Just be clear about what you’re getting into.