Councillor fluffs his feathers on Twitter
With 100,000 followers, the 74-year-old Toronto politician has advice for would-be stars. Twitter, he says, means “stepping away from the podium and into the crowd.”
Thestar.com
Aug. 17, 2015
By David Bateman
It’s not the norm for a politician to hit 100,000 Twitter followers without leading a political party or being involved in some kind of scandal.
One tweet at a time, 74-year-old Toronto councillor and social media phenomenon Norm Kelly is rewriting the rulebook.
Kelly hit the 100,000 milestone after months of defending Drake, paying tribute to a dead racoon and generally being very witty.
The politician, who joined the social media site in July 2010, has a little advice for anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps.
“Be yourself. I thought about it, and some politicians, maybe the majority, use Twitter as an extension of their political life,” Kelly said.
“I deliberately decided not to do that. My political leanings are expressed in political form.
“Twitter is just me having fun, sharing my sense of pride in Toronto and the humour of everyday life.”
He has substantially more followers than Mayor John Tory (68,000), but considerably fewer than former mayor Rob Ford (197,000).
Kelly insists his meteoric rise, which Twitter Canada has dubbed “the summer of Norm,” is a happy accident.
“There was no plan in place to grow 100,000 followers,” he said.
So how did he do it?
“It’s difficult to give advice. Just be yourself, frankly.
“Get off the soapbox. Twitter is the equivalent of stepping away from the podium and into the crowd.”
When he leapt to the defence of Drake in his feud with Meek Mill recently, Kelly received a monstrous 136,000 retweets.
He “would never have anticipated” the impact the tweet would have in the international media.
Conversely, some of the tweets he thought were hilarious received little or no fanfare.
“Part of my humour is wacky and broad, some if it is sly and wry,” he said.
“The one [tweet] I liked most got no play whatsoever. It was a fat Elvis doing Shakespeare with the caption ‘tubby or not tubby, that is the question.’”
Twitter spokesperson Cam Gordon says the councillor has been on their radar for some time, thanks to his “mixture of actual information and a sense of humour.”
Gordon highlighted Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, with 252,000 followers, as one of the few other politicians in Canada with an “authentic” voice on Twitter.
The big question a lot of users have asked of Kelly is whether he writes the tweets himself. He says he does, but also freely acknowledges he “steals shamelessly from everyone.”
“One of the attractive features of political life is you’re a perpetual student, always learning,” he said.
“Just like I ask people for information about policy, I haven’t been backward about asking on information on rap music or hip hop culture.”
Now that he’s hit the 100,000 mark, a meeting with Drake is all Kelly needs to break the Internet.
