Ashton Kutcher

MSN Celebrity yesterday suggested that Twitter was protecting actor and internet entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher who has been accused of cheating on his wife, the actress Demi Moore, a feed they picked up from an excellent article on Newsweek.com http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/kausfiles/2010/09/27/is-twitter-protecting-ashton-kutcher.html?from=rss

Whether the allegations are true or not, if Twitter is manipulating the posts and deleting any that refer to the allegations then it is a very worrying development.

 Kutcher is a big player on Twitter, with nearly six million followers yet his message stream at @APlusK does not show the mixture of pro and anti comments one would expect.

 Social media was created in an atmosphere of openness and welcome feedback. If the message is going to be manipulated by the platform owners then the whole premise on which social media has been established – and flourished – may be in jeopardy.

 If our messages are being monitored, manipulated or even being removed then social media has moved into a new, darker place.

Obviously there are lots of other platforms – and new social media sites – but the main players continue to dominate the social media space.

That said, as the market stabilizes it is time to use the tools more strategically and concentrate on the message rather than the shiny new medium.

At Cerco we are increasingly being asked to devise a social media strategy for clients. Only this week we advised on the use of a private Twitter group for passing information around a group of multi-national and multi-discipline salespeople.

The client was astonished at the versatility of Twitter and how the real time information would supplement their intranet – all free of charge.

For an excellent article on Twitter best practice see: http://blog.spurinteractive.com/2010/03/07/twitter-best-practices-for-social-media-marketing/

Author Steve Latham makes the valid point that too many tweets are about me, my thoughts and my status.

If you are using Twitter for business, do not tell us that you are standing in a supermarket queue. Your (business audience) does not care.

We have recently witnessed two cases of ‘careless (Twitter) talk costing sales’ – to paraphrase the old WW2 saying.

In both cases the Twitterers forgot they had potential clients following them and made totally inappropriate comments, losing themselves future work and attracting much negative ‘buzz’.

So the old Marketing adage of the message being as important as the medium still holds good!

While some of the audience wholeheartedly grasped the opportunities presented by blogging, Twitter and Facebook, it is fair to say that a number were less convinced.

When we explained that many major companies (and CEOs) were using Twitter – to break news that could be of interest to those looking for a new role – more understood the potential power of social media.

The news that Twitter has launched a new website aimed at business users called ExecTweets which pulls together posts from corporate executives adds credence to what we were saying on Monday.

The site was created in conjunction with ad agency Federated Media and has been sponsored by Microsoft – so it is likely to become well-used very quickly. We will watch with interest.

ExecTweets: http://www.exectweets.com

I enthusiastically embrace all the new social media tools and we encourage our clients to use them too – where appropriate.

Just because a tool exists does not mean that a business has to use it!

Twitter is a case in point. Used correctly, it is a very powerful CRM tool. Used badly, it will make a company appear ridiculous.

For an amusing video that makes this point very well see http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8puil_twouble-with-twitter-soustitre_creation

For an easy guide to Twitter (by the excellent Commoncraft) see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o