Will the Real Mark Davidson Please Stand Up (via the Supposed Social Media Guru's Twitter Account)?

​Hat tip to the Liberal OC's Dan Chmielewski for passing along what is either an embarrassing pickle for a self-proclaimed Orange County "Internet sales & marketing professional" and "social marketing & communications strategist," or a complete hoax.

According to a series of tweets, one of Mark Davidson's three Twitter ghostwriters was fired, discovered the boss did not change his Twitter password and, after a couple cocktails, signed on as Davidson.

In fact, let me illustrate it for you, the shaded tweet at the bottom being first and reading up in reverse order (for a non-fuzzy view, check out Shea Bennett's original post on LinkedIn):

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​Hours passed, and more tweets were posted on Davidson's Twitter page without the supposed social media guru taking over his own page and admitting he'd been had. A second ghostwriter who'd been charged with answering all the tweets that come to Davidson later wrote--signed on as his boss--that he had quit ("I am so not dealing with this s*** today").

Tons of media sites have picked up the story. And now, some question whether Mark Davidson really exists. Here's what you'll find at Is Mark Davidson Real?

Here's what we've uncovered so far:

• Mark hasn't tweeted "officially" since the debacle, but he continues to log into Twitter and favorite tweets and use other features. He's not posting anymore though.


• The company he claims to work for, Shift+One Media, doesn't seem to really exist. No website at all. Calls to the phone number on record for Mark Davidson and for the owner of MarkDavidson.com go unanswered, and don't go to a real voice mail.


• UPDATE: The website address for his company now redirects to his Twitter account. This is a change as of Friday Afternoon (9/23/11)


• We have so far been unable to find one person who has ACTUALLY ever met Mark in person. If you have, please let us know in the form at right!


• Final piece of evidence for now, he tweeted this on July 9th this year:

That's been followed by three updates.