Event report: The great ‘Twitter or Bitter’ debate 2009

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The following is a brief summary of the debate, followed by some selected ‘Tweets’ posted during the proceedings. You can contribute to the debate yourself by following #twitterorbitter.

The event was held in Graphic Bar, central London, and chaired by Andrew Gerrard, CEO of d-marketing. The panellists on the pro-Twitter side were Matt Whelan (Guava) and Craig McCullough (TMG), while the anti-Twitter team were represented by Jon Bains (Tangent One) and Daren Forsyth (140characters).

Andrew Gerrard, an avid Twitterer himself, introduced he proceedings by asking each panellist to persuade the audience why they should be 'for' or 'against' the micro-blogging platform.

On the 'anti' side, Jon pointed out that Twitter was “just another platform”, and as ever it’s how the platform its used that really counts. From a client perspective, he felt marketers often simply didn’t have enough to say on Twitter, to the point where the whole campaign can backfire on the brand image. Daren Forsyth pointed out that Twitter was intrinsically a “very human platform”, as a result was “very flawed”.

On the 'pro' side, Matt Whelan highlighted the potential of live search, and how Twitter has essentially “replaced RSS feeds”. Meanwhile, Craig McCullough extolled virtues of crowd-sourced news, which regularly scoops traditional newswires

Jon looked to MySpace’s dwindling popularity as an example of how fickle social media users can be. The consumers' desire for social interaction online isn’t going away, but the platform might, he added.

Moving on, the ‘pro’ team saw potential in location based services. Twitter gets a high level of traffic from third-party clients such as TweetDeck, often accessed via mobiles.  The potential of reaching people via geo-location services is huge, such as Tweeting vouchers (e.g. For restaurants, transport, entertainment, etc.) to potential customers nearby.

The debate moved on to the tricky balancing act facing corporates and brands using Twitter. Craig McCullough said the nature of Twitter ‘polarised’ the challenge to marketers. Their brands are now being talked about online on a highly visible and popular platform, whether they like it or not. The problem is they  can either join in through their own Twitter account, and risk inviting further negative feedback, or ignore the platform, which could look too defensive and backward.

The debate then opened to the audience, where the panel fielded questions including issues such as ‘Twitter squatting’, where brand names are being hijacked, sometimes for malicious purposes, and how B2B marketers can use Twitter. They also looked at some of the most famous Twitter brand accounts- such as Moonfruit’s controversial ‘Mac Book’ promotion, and what lessons marketers can learn from them.

Some select highlights from the debate and Q&A session are below, taken from Tweets using the #twitterorbitter hashtag on the night.