Some top marketers in the US have come out and said they have no time for Twitter including Procter & Gamble, Hyundai and Converse.In a report in Adweek asking how effective Twitter is as a marketing tool it cites several marketers saying they do not think it has anything (or very little to offer them). As well as the three above the piece names other examples of brands that have racked up big fails using Twitter like Delta Airlines (barely updating its account for six months).What's interesting about some of those cited like Hyundai is that they don’t think it is for them when rivals (Ford for instance) have had so much success using Twitter.Joel Ewanick, group vp of marketing for Hyundai told the US ad magazine that: "I'm not a big fan of Twitter. My Twitter meter has gone down." He added that for him Facebook is much more useful. He said Twitter had become the butt of a joke. "You start seeing in popular culture people making fun of Twitter." Geoff Cottrill, CMO for the Nike-owned Converse (neither brand has much presence on Twitter added to that saying Twitter was overrated."Twitter is a little bit overrated. There will be a new media toy that will replace it in a year or two." Both put more faith in Facebook as does Procter & Gamble. Last month VentureBlog reported from an event sponsored by P&G the FMCG giant was sceptical about Twitter but had a love of Facebook."They described Twitter as much more like television than one might think. To P&G, Twitter is a great broadcast medium -- it is best for one to many communications that are short bursts of timely information -- but as good as it is for timely information, the P&G folks do not view it as particularly relevant to what they are doing on the brand building and advertising side. "For those things that Proctor & Gamble thinks are most interesting and important, they do not believe that Twitter will ever approach the value they can get out of a Google or Facebook. But they are open to looking at other alternatives that will have more of the engagement and brand building attributes that they hope to exploit in Facebook."That could all be true. With all three, but I also wonder if part of it is that they just haven’t found the right way in to get any momentum on Twitter in the way they have on Facebook.What's interesting for example about Hyundai and these other examples is that you know (or at least can guess) that unlike Ford, which has been successful, that they have not invested the budget or the time in developing their Twitter activities in the same way.Ford has made headlines not only with its head of social media Scott Monty, but with the fact that it is investing 25% of its marketing budget into social media. That means not only cash, but time, resource, hard work and some interesting ideas. On the back of that Ford has won a well publicised return.Twitter as part of a larger social media campaign can work for everyone, but you still need to apply some thought and creativity to how it is being used. Why I'm convinced of that is partly because of the number of examples of markets where there is a dominant player losing out smaller players (Hallmark and Somecards; JetBlue and Delta are two examples). The question is why are they losing out (with Delta we already know that answer -- and its failure brings with it a lot of clues to the success of others).Even the most basic of activity on Twitter such as news and customer updates doesn't have to be done in the most basic of fashions. Interesting things can be done with just about anything. I think that's what people using it very successfully have come to understand.
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Gordon Macmillan
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