@InvisibleObama Was Quick Twitter Thinking by Digital Ad Executive

By STUART ELLIOTT

Everyone's asking, “who's behind @invisibleobama?” That seems like a silly question, doesn't it? #thinkabouthatone

- Invisible Obama (@InvisibleObama) August 31, 2012

A post to Twitter, on Aug. 31.

The creator of a Twitter account called Invisible Obama - born five minutes or so after the furniture-centric speech by Clint Eastwood at the Republic National Convention ended - is making himself, er, um, visible.

Invisible Obama turns out to be Ian Schafer, chief executive of Deep Focus, a digital agency with a specialty in social media like Facebook and, yes, Twitter. Mr. Schafer has long had a Twitter account under his own name, @ischafer, which has more than 13,600 followers, and the agency, part of Engine USA, has one, too, @deepfocus, with almost 1,700 followers.

But @InvisibleObama, which began on Aug. 30, already dwarf s them both, with almost 69,700 followers; there is also a complementary presence on Facebook. And the Twitter account has been the subject of a fair amount of news coverage, on television and blogs.

The experience of shepherding the @InvisibleObama account, Mr. Schafer shared in an interview, has been a blend of practicing what you preach, the law of unintended consequences, putting your money where your mouth is and being careful what you wish for.

“It's been kind of a fascinating ride,” Mr. Schafer said. “It started as a joke and became a responsibility.”

The Invisible Obama Twitter feed is another example of the real-time nature of social media, which can help marketers immeasurably as they seek to capitalize on the attention that consumers pay to major news events and other aspects of popular culture.

“This is what we do,” Mr. Schafer said, “try to take these moments in the zeitgeist and use them as a launching pad for relevancy.”

This was not the first time he created a Twitter account to tap into, and create, consumer buzz, Mr. Schafer said.

“But this is the first one that took off immediately,” he added. The takeoff was so abrupt that at one point Twitter administrators shut down the account because it “gained so many followers so quickly.” (The initial blackout was resolved, Mr. Schafer said, after he contacted them.)

The tactic of taking advantage of larger events, known as borrowed interest, can be a double-edged sword. What may seem topical or witty to some could be deemed by others to be jumping on a bandwagon or childish - or, in the case of an election year idea, overly (or overtly) political.

“I was being very careful not to be too partisan,” Mr. Schafer said, because he was hoping for “attention from both sides” of the political spectrum.

In fact, “I started making jokes about the Republican convention from my p ersonal account and certain people were taking them way too seriously,” he added. “This was for fun, certainly not the agency talking; I'm doing it on my own.”

The idea was that “if this invisible Obama” - who, according to Mr. Eastwood, was seated in the chair he brought onstage as a prop for his speech - “had a voice, what would he be saying?” Mr. Schafer said.

“I wanted to make it more about the humor of an invisible president running around who was not just a figment of Clint Eastwood's imagination,” he added, than just another way to be “critical of Mitt Romney.”

Mr. Schafer said he hoped to keep the account going, “out of a passion for politics, media and social media.” He has been posting each day to keep his Twitter followers interested until the presidential debates, he added, which will be “an inflection point for the account,” generating many posts.

“What I'm learning is that people respond when they're consu ming television news,” Mr. Schafer said, demonstrating how, as is widely discussed in social media circles, consumers are increasingly using smartphones, tablets and other devices to accompany their TV watching.

“That talk about the ‘second screen?' ” he asked. “It's for real.”

As for the red chair that serves as the avatar for the account, Mr. Schafer said, laughing, that it was “the first red chair I could find in a Google image search without a watermark.”

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter by clicking here.