Newly signed Boston Celtics player Shaquille O'Neal speaks to reporters at a news conference in Waltham

Shaquille O'Neal has 3.2 million followers on Twitter. You and I have, what, 500? 800 at the most.

It's probably in our best interest to get a chunk of that 3.2 million person pie, right?

Right.

Which is why the idea of TwitChange is so genius.

TwitChange is an online auction that allows fanboys and entrepreneurs the opportunity to bid on retweets and mentions from celebrities such as Shaq, Snoop Dogg and Kim Kardashian. Bidders can toss their hat in the ring for one retweet from their favorite celeb or a package deal that includes a follow from him or her, a retweet and a unique shout out. (Personally, I can't wait to buy the rights to a "My 15 minutes are almost up" retweet from Soulja Boy. That's an appropriate way to spend $500, right?)

All of the proceeds from the auctions go to aHomeInHaiti.org, which has provided over $1.5 million to the Haiti relief effort since the earthquake, according to the TwitChange website, making this an even more genius idea.

Which brings us back to Shaq.

He's a trendsetter, a tastemaker and a social media dynamo. He bends the ear of over 3 million people in the Twitterverse. How much would you pay to reach that social networking army? $1,000? $1,500?

Try $510. That was the highest bid for a retweet from the Big Leprechaun as of 8 a.m. Thursday ($2,550 for the full Twitter package).

I'm sure the figure has grown since then (it's almost 1 p.m. PT now) but even so it's a great deal. Take a trip to TweetValue and measure the worth of your Twitter handle. Now add 30,000 followers (one percent of Shaq's army). Changes things, doesn't it?

So I ask you again: how much would you pay for a retweet from Shaq?

$510?

It could be yours.

To reach editor Patrick Crawley, click here.

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