Fluffy
In between doing actual work this afternoon, my brain was wrestling with the idea that clients could use Twitter as some kind of marketing channel (or not, or… something). There was a PDF floating, which purported to offer detailed insight into how to do this, and it was pretty funny stuff.
The amount of effort that was required to interface Twitter with a coherent corporate marketing message was scarily large (”Have two people reponsible for posting, so one of them can always be “on call” to deal with issues!”).
It made me wonder if Twitter, by its very nature, resists this kind of use.
I think it might mimic some specific way in which we, as humans, think. The little moments of existential sparkle when we notice stuff about what we are doing and how we are doing it. The honest or not-so-honest internal monologue. The Head fluff we all share, and thus can appreciate in others.
The best of it is instinctive and authentic and even in 140 characters it will often result in a large amount of insight or humour or experience. And if there is any marketing value to be had from that it isn’t something you can work out before you start. That human fluff is required as tinder or else you just get a damp and embarrassing squib. The value emerges in an unpredictable and second-hand kind of way. And it’s fluffy human value.
I’m not sure a direct corporate marketing message can replicate that.