The Elusive Twitter Ghostwriter

Behind all your favorite accounts

Author

Will Stern
February 22, 2023

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I have been ghostwriting for business founders, executives, and investors for years. 300+ industry leaders, thousands of articles, tens of millions of views. Chances are, you've read something I've written online—you just didn't know it.

Thankfully, it’s been a while since I’ve heard someone use the term “Twitter Thought Leader” unironically.

But that doesn’t mean that thousands of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and brands aren’t investing serious money to build massive followings on their accounts. One of the most popular (and under-the-radar) methods to acquire virality is to hire a Twitter ghostwriter.

A huge number of CEO-types bank on their Twitter accounts to provide potential audiences with an ‘authentic’ voice to establish themselves as industry leaders, grow their digital footprint, and drive traffic to their companies.

Though authenticity may be the stated goal, the means to get there are anything but.

Take Charlie Light.

He’s the mastermind between John W. Rich, “FinTwit's Greatest Investor.”

After building an empire of memes from his John Rich account, Charlie turned his sights toward the ghostwriting world, offering his services to accounts looking to capture some of his virality.

With a proven track record, Light was able to leverage his demonstrated success into a full content agency (Alpha Social Group).

In addition to offering consulting services, Light also manages accounts as a ghostwriter, supercharging personal and corporate brands with a dose of his trademark meme expertise.

Many were skeptical.

But in such an opaque world, one, which, by definition, is full of secrecy (i.e. the ‘ghost’ in ‘ghostwriting’), it was tough to judge the veracity of any of the claims.

“Twitter is Silicon Valley's most important social club, and top investors pay ghostwriters big bucks to make them look good in 280 characters.”

Some of the claims made by the anonymous ghostwriter:

  • They made $200K last year from ghostwriting

  • They have gotten paid $100K for threads announcing a funding round

  • They charge $5-$10K for 10 tweets/month

  • Their clients range from 2K-200K followers

  • They tend to have 25-50 clients at a time

  • It only takes them 5 hours per week

Here’s an excerpt that helps explain the writer’s reasoning for the demand for high-quality ghostwriters. While questions remain over the veracity of the claims above, I find this to be a pretty good explanation of the industry:

“[VCs} have more money than they know what to do with, and they're trying to go bigger. There's friendly competition. The stakes are getting higher. The guys who made a billion aren't retiring; they're trying to do a $10 billion fund. The competition means the deal flow is faster and more cutthroat... Now what does that have to do with Twitter? It matters because funders have to build parasocial relationships with founders. A founder might read a tweet from a VC and say: "Wow, he's a cool guy. He's in on the joke. I want him on my board." Establishing yourself as a funder is no longer a one-to-one format where you're building meaningful relationships. It's a one-to-many format. You're broadcasting. I'm writing the content that will get the attention of young founders, to establish the credibility of my clients, the VCs.”

Since the average outsider could do little more than speculate on the truthfulness of these claims, Light was one of the few people on the inside qualified to weigh in and share his takes on the article.

According to Light:

Put simply, yes, it is possible to make $200K ghostwriting as a side hustle. But 5 hours per week seems unrealistic.

“It usually takes me 20 or 30 minutes just to switch my brain from one client to the next (I do this by reviewing past tweets, notes, and analytics to help form a game plan for what I’m going to write).

If they truly have 25 to 50 clients (as the article claims), they’re spending just 6 to 12 minutes per client per week. That means clients are basically getting the same content as everyone else - there can’t possibly be time in that 6 to 12 minutes to consider the unique elements of each client’s brand.”

Triple Whale’s Head of Social, Tommy Clark, also weighed in.

But regardless of whether or not the Business Insider ghostwriter was telling the truth, there’s no doubt that there is a thriving ecosystem for ghostwriters making big money for the precise reason laid out in the piece.

Twitter clout is as important as real-world reputation (or it’s often perceived to be anyway) for VCs and entrepreneurs. And these people likely didn’t get to where they are as a result of their Twitter skills. So, to fill the gap, they outsource to the pros.

While most ghostwriters are less open about their work, with many under NDAs to protect their clients, plenty of others have been open about their ability to create sustainable businesses from playing the Cyrano behind their client’s Christian (Yes, I’m extremely cultured. Read a fucking book… ok, I had to Wikipedia it but still that’s a sick reference).

Nicolas Cole even wrote a thread on Ghostwriting 101 a couple years ago and teaches courses for aspiring ghostwriters.

Generally, ghostwriters are far more willing to publicize the identities of brands they work with rather than individuals. This makes sense, after all, every brand these days has someone running their social media — whether an in-house Content Manager that is slowly learning to use a computer — or contracted content agencies.

But outting the names of individuals working with ghostwriters to curate their Twitter profiles would be popping the illusory bubble of authenticity which drives the entire industry. Once everyone knows a big-shot VC with a devoted Twitter following is not actually penning their own posts, all of the benefits derived from the arrangement fall away.

Take a look at the website of one of the top ghostwriters on Twitter, Jason Levin.

A lot of impressive stuff in that portfolio! But you’ll notice he won’t include the names of the individual founders and VCs he works with, even while providing a list of brands that have hired him for freelance work.

Takeaways:

  • Thought Leaders are often just really good talent scouts.

    • It may look like a VC with a steady stream of wisdom and/or memes is a master of the Twitter algo, when in reality they were smart enough to identify the platform’s importance to their personal brand and have the humility to recognize they need to bring in a ringer.

  • True data on this industry will always be elusive.

    • Considering the furtive relationship between individuals and their ghostwriters, it’s impossible to place a number on the size of the industry.

  • The way in is through demonstrated success.

    • Everyone I mentioned in this piece has a distinct style and likely their own strategies for landing clients (or vetting inbound leads). But what they all have in common is a strong personal brand that they are able to package up and sell to the market. They don’t need to prove themselves… they already do, every day by producing viral content on their own.