Celebrities Tweet for Good!

Ah, Twitter. All the cool kids are doing it, and so are tons of celebs. In large part, it's for PR — a quick search will turn up page after page of sites you can visit to find your favorite celebrity on Twitter, like celebritytweet (Soleil Moon Frye just got "Manic Monday" stuck in my head — thanks a lot, Punky).

But, stars are savvy, they know that a few witty comments using 140 characters or less isn't quite enough to get lukewarm fans to follow them. We need a reason to click that Follow button, you know? And so, a growing number of stars are complementing their PR with Twitter by linking their tweets to charitable causes.

Perhaps the best example is Ashton Kutcher, who challenged CNN to a race: Whoever got one million followers first was the winner, and Kutcher won. And so, he donated $100,000 to the Malaria No More fund, which will purchase 10,000 mosquito nets for charity.

"We now live in an age in media that a single voice can have as much power and relevance on the Web, that is, as an entire media network," Kutcher commented on Larry King Live. He continued: "I think that to me was shocking." What's shocking to me is that more than a million people are willing to follow the ramblings of the mastermind behind Punk'd. But hey, that's just me.

He does have some surprisingly deep insights on Twitter, though, telling Larry King, "At the end of the day, we all have ego, we all have some level of ego. But if we can use our ego to actually create good charitable things in the world in some way, and use our ego — originally, I defined Twitter as an ego stream when I first saw it. But then what I realized is if we can transform that into something that's positive that can actually effectively change the world, that can be a really valuable tool."

CNN agreed to match Kutcher's donation, but that was only the beginning. Ryan Seacrest got in on the act, giving 10,000 nets himself, and then used Twitter to call out Oprah and P. Diddy. No word on P. Diddy just yet, but Oprah, in typical Big O form, doubled the standard donation by giving around $200,000 to purchase 20,000 nets.

Hugh Jackman took a slightly different philanthropic route. Rather than bringing his famous friends into the mix, Jackman made a point to get his fans involved, offering $100,000 to whomever tells him (in 140 characters or less) why they think their charity of choice should get the donation. Shortly after issuing the challenge, Jackman wrote, "The more passion shown for your charity the better! Get the support of your friends and teach them the importance of giving."

What do you think? Do you use Twitter to follow your favorite celebs, and do their tweets for a cause make you more of a fan?

Photo of Ashton Kutcher courtesy of Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images