Adventures In Digital Marketing

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of questions to LinkedIn Answers to see what kind of response I’d get and judge how other people we thinking about a things.  Once questions was on the AppleTV and the other was on Twitter.  The following is the collected answers I received.  I think they give an interesting insight into how people are working with these new technologies.

First up, Twitter.  I got a LOT of responses to this question, too many for this blog post to be honest, so I am going to edit them.  If you want to see the full list of answers visit the page on LinkedIn.

From the answers below it seems that there is quite a lot of negativity surrounding Twitter, certainly amongst the LinkedIn audience.

Question: Everyone is talking about Twitter! Are you using it, if so, why? Is it useful?

I don’t really "get" it myself. As in, I understand it, and I’ve had a play with it, but I find it really rather meaningless as anything I would want to implement in my life.
Thayer Driver, Commercial Director

I have stopped using it because currently for business purposes there is no way to make adequate disclosure that complies with WOMMA recommendations…
Andy Beard, Owner, Keedz Ltd

I’m using Twitter primarily as a micro-blogging platform.
Eden Spodek, Online Communications at Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan

I don’t use it myself, but am fascinated by what people are using and why.
Jeremy Nal, Consultant

I enjoy it, but only as a portable, personal micro-blogging format. It is quite a distraction and find it hard to see it as anything but a novelty.
Johanna Hunt, Researcher at the University of Sussex

It works extremely well in a conference setting where you can keep track of the movements of friends and acquaintances - which panel people are attending, which parties to sign up for, where people are meeting for lunch etc.

it’s a little less useful the rest of the time but still fun to play around with.
Michael Smith, CEO/Founder of Mind Candy and Co-Founder of Firebox.com

Interesting to play with. Not sure if it’ll be useful in the long term yet.
Adrian Howard, Passionate about creating great software

Unfortunately, I think it’s a matter of time until spammers get a hold of it.
Chris Cavallari, Producer

I use it and enjoy it, but it’s not for everyone. You definitely don’t want to open up your twitter account to everybody or you’ll do nothing but spend time reading their twits.
Matthew Fitzsimmons

I find Twitter annoying.
Glen Farrelly, Website producer at Hospitals of Ontario

useless but seems to be fun and popular.
Fayyaz Alam, Manager of IT at Emirates Airlines

When it comes to stupid internet or gadget fads, this one absolutely takes the cake.  It is a useless indulgence in our online world.
David Cote, VP New Media, AgencyNext Inc.

My own personal thoughts on Twitter is that it’s a massive ego-stroking tool for people who already have a large blog audience.  The people with the most friends are those who are already “famous” and they’re attracting so called friend because others want that fame to rub off on them.

I’m no longer using twitter as I found it to be a waste of time more than anything and, for me, it doesn’t add anything to the mix that I can’t already get with using blogs or IM.

Howard
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