Twitter - surely the biggest buzz word in digital marketing today, thankfully stepping up to the plate to lower the mentions of the last buzz term, "widgets".
Like widgets, Twitter is often misunderstood, but brands are starting to experiment and like many things that are new, the reactions are mixed and strong. Just look at the response to Skittles move to turn their homepage into a Twitter search results feed. (Read Alisa Leonard-Hansen's feedback to Silicon Alley Insider, or Antony Mayfield's thoughts for New Media Age here).
Antony raises a valid point which is openness undoubtedly creates increased risk, which may be a particular problem by children's brands. Skittles are certainly being brave to make this step, but are not doing it alone. Brands such as Lego understood early on that being 'in' social media means letting go, provide the building blocks and the audience will create the content. A quick search on YouTube for Lego brings up what might be the single most funny thing on the Internet - Eddie Izzard's sketch about Darth Vader trying to order Penne All'Arrabiata for his lunch, recreated in Lego stop-frame animation. View it here over and over again.
Econsultancy, a London and New York based publisher, trainer and community for the digital marketing world have thrown themselves into the Twitter space and have published a great article about the "the 13 types of tweet to take notice of".
