Despite its brevity, a 140-character message leaves a lot of room for ambiguity. And brands active on the channel are often only a simple click away from being construed as misogynistic, insensitive and opportunistic.

So risky is Twitter that Wendy Thompson, the founder of social media agency Socialites, advises clients not to dabble in platform.

“It’s really dangerous,” she says. “And we often recommend to our clients not to go onto it, because you’re just setting yourself up for negativity. There are a lot of bandwagon people on there—and that’s fine, but it’s not great for brands.”

The general negativity of the Twitter platform has recently seen another social media aficionado in Flossie founder Jenene Crossan deactivating her account on the service due to becoming disillusioned with the nastiness it engenders.

Unlike Crossan, Thompson is still active on the platform on a personal basis and she does see advantages in this.

“What I’ve found with Twitter is that it’s useful for some things but not for others,” Thompson says. “Where it is good is for news media – all the politicians and celebrities are there. It’s a great listening tool.”

Wendy Thompson

However, for brands, Thompson argues that Facebook is a better place to be, because it allows for the creation of communities through brand pages—and she says that this is at the core of what social should represent to brands.

“It used to be that social was part of digital, PR, advertising or marketing, but it’s really its own entity,” she says.

“It’s about building communities through two-way communication. If you go into this community and engage with it, you immediately get this sense of what’s going on.”

This is a truncated version of an article run by our sibling publication, Stoppress.co.nz

Read the full version here.