To tweet or not to tweet?

AKQA's Tom Bedecarré tells Media140 London delegates of the exciting opportunities Twitter can bring to businesses and brands

Keynote speaker, Tom Bedecarré, chief executive of the creative agency AKQA, opened the Media140 London internet conference this morning with the question "Why Twitter?", and one of his answers was to be in touch with the "zeitgeist". For him, Twitter is like a wire service.

He said: "I travel a lot between our six offices and it helps me stay in touch, and lets me stay in touch, with what is happening. I follow a lot of people and in my job I have to know what the zeitgeist is.

"The world is split between Twitter haters and Twitter lovers and I am fascinated with Twitter haters. Lots of journalists love to write about Twitter haters. Since Ashton Kutcher got a million followers and it became famous, a lot of people hate it. But journalists particularly hate it, and maybe this is because Twitter may be a threat to journalism. So the best way to get a headline in a newspaper for a brand, is to get a study on how rubbish Twitter is.

"When I ask my clients: 'Are you in social media?' And the answer is: 'I don't have time'. Or they answer: 'Oh my God, I just got on Facebook and now I have to do Twitter?' Some journalists talk to me and say, 'I was on it for an hour and I don't get it. And I even wrote two tweets.' Well.

"One important question is, how to understand the change from a push model to a collaborative discussion. I find that clients struggle with that change. The good thing is, whatever is new and interesting gets a lot of attention. For a brand, last year it was the iPhone application, this year it is the Facebook page ...

"Twitter is used for a lot of different things – that is one of the interesting things about it. People are creating business opportunities, use it to communicate with friends, publish something or tell the people out there about a brand. This is why I don't understand Twitter haters. There is something really exiting about Twitter. This is going to be a platform that will lead to great ideas."

Media140 London is a one-day conference which sets out to explore the impact of Twitter and real-time social media on agencies, marketers and brands. The conference in London is dedicated to brands, and the event will also travel to India, Italy and Australia.


source: guardian.co.uk