Methodist Twitter – Fake or just Unoriginal?

Image via CrunchBase

My newest web program I’m enjoying is TwitZap, which allows me to follow channels (“topics”) that I’ve chosen.  Naturally, I chose “Methodist” to see what the twitterverse was yacking about my home team.

And then the strange thing happened…three updates came within 45 minutes of each other.  Check them out.

1. “Just made it home from the Job Seekers group at Alpharetta First United Methodist Church. Very engaged audience and lots of great questions.” @taimingraleat
2. “Just made it home from the Job Seekers group at Alpharetta First United Methodist Church. Very engaged audience and lots of great questions.” @nayad94911
3. “Just made it home from the Job Seekers group at Alpharetta First United Methodist Church. Very engaged audience and lots of great questions.” @rickysteele 

OK, so what’s going on here?  

1. This is a canned response that these people got via email or other distribution and they set as their twitter status to advertize.
2. These are fake updates used in an SEO strategy (they are from Mesa, Indianapolis, and Atlanta…how could they all go to Alpharetta UMC in northern Atlanta?  And why was the one of the above reading about Twitter SEO?)

I just find it weird that a United Methodist Church would use fake (or at least unoriginal) updates in this way to get people to come to their Job Seekers group.  While the ends are probably amazing and helpful to people, are these means really appropriate?

Did these people actually attend or did they not?  That’s my question.