Welcome, @CraigyFerg! Craig Ferguson Joins Twitter

by Rachel Sklar | 4:11 am, February 9th, 2010

» 6 comments

Craig Ferguson is the second late-night host to join Twitter. Over a year after Jimmy Fallon joined, foreshadowing his web-savvy show, Ferguson jumped in with gusto, tweeting 18 times in his first twelve hours.

After pooh-poohing it in the past, Ferguson announced at the top of Monday night’s show that he had succumbed and was joining Twitter, tweeting up a storm during his show, wondering if he was allowed to swear, experimenting with the ‘retweet’ function, crowdsourcing, pushing his favorite show Mythbusters, and exclaiming, “God this shit is terrific.”

The Wrap’s Josef Adalian confirmed from CBS that this was, indeed, Ferguson’s account (it’s not yet verified). At the time of writing — three hours after he announced it on his show — he had 12,805 followers, plus many retweets; expect both numbers to skyrocket in the next day or so.

Does this foreshadow the rest of the late-night crew getting on Twitter? The last two standing big dogs, Jay Leno and David Letterman? It seems puny to compare Ferguson’s 12K follower count with the blockbuster 120-million audience for last night’s Superbowl (and commercial), but it’s gonna be mighty competitive out there in this fracturing, nichefying new world, so the smart player will go to where the fans are for that extra push. It’s worked nicely for Fallon, who has become an Internet-kids darling (with a
Webby award to prove it) and gets a healthy next-day pickup for his spots thanks to Twitter (not just him, but also his staff). It will be interesting to see what Ferguson does with this outlet — newbies who get caught up in the instant-gratification blank-slate fun of Twitter at the start become proselytizers and true believers — and frequent users. So we may have some fun extra content from Ferguson to look forward to soon.

Will it lead to more viewers? Perhaps — I can say it has led to at least one, since I just perma-DVR’d Ferguson so I never miss a moment like this again. (I was alerted by Google Zeitgeist; confirmed via Twitter and the Wrap). But it’s just an example of multi-platform engagement, and chasing your audience interactively, both of which are trending – and inevitable – strategies in the formerly one-way world of television. So.

http://twitter.com/CRZ CRZ

The Wrap’s Josef Adalian confirmed from CBS that this was, indeed, Ferguson’s account (it’s not yet verified).

Um, also, Craig said and displayed his username about a dozen times over the course of the show, but go ahead and get that confirmation, Josef.

I can’t believe people (well, the people who are still up at 12:37/11:37) haven’t been watching this show – he’s consistently been doing the best monologues in late night for YEARS and isn’t afraid to see where his ad libs take him – and us! Finally coming to the Twitter dark side is just the next step in his constant evolution as the REAL prince of late night.

One interesting thing I gleaned from last night is that Craig must be watching his network’s east coast feed – poor west coast fans, short-shrifted again, but he’s at that age where he has to turn in “early.” :) Also, how surreal it must have been to hit “refresh” and see your follower account increase by hundreds per minute in real time. (Of course, Craig is using an iPhone to tweet, so it probably works differently for him.)
http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

Craig’s monologue-like rants are the most consistently smart, funny things on television and during the course of his interviews, there’s really no telling where he’ll go.

Welcome aboard. It’ll be an interesting ride, for sure.
http://twitter.com/CRZ CRZ

What also may be interesting to come out of all this is how many people Craig ends up bringing people to Twitter as a result of his joining. (Hey Magister, why aren’t YOU on Twitter? You seem like someone I’d like to follow even if all you’d tweet are reminders for me to check out your blog(s).)
Rachel Sklar

@CRZ Easy, tiger, I didn’t see it, so I couldn’t make any claims without citing a source. Looked on YouTube for the clip too. It’s now added to my DVR lineup, but you know, if I watched all the TV I was exhorted not to miss I’d never leave the house. Which actually would be not a bad life, because there’s so much great stuff on TV. But otherwise I’ll settle for finding out about cool things and then following up to be able to relay how they happened accurately, even if I did not see it firsthand.
http://twitter.com/CRZ CRZ

Hey wait Rachel, I specifically called out Josef and not you for a reason. I already learned my lesson about getting you to watch what I want you to watch and besides, sadly, I’d already figured out that nobody at Mediaite watched the show.
http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

@CRZ: I signed-up for Twitter in ’07 and tried to use it for random thoughts that weren’t large or deep enough for a blogpost, but back then, the relatively few who were using it seemed to be mostly tweeting things like “in line at the grocery” or “mmm egg salad sandwiches” and I got bored.