Yesterday Uniqlo launched UTweet, a website that turns your recent tweets into a branded slideshow. The idea behind it is fairly simple: enter your username and you’re presented with a visualisation of the things you talk about on Twitter, with some Uniqlo branding about its new cartoon-style t-shirt collection mixed in.

As the site includes easy-to-use sharing options, UTweet was of course discussed at length by the digital/PR/social media community on Twitter. Initial reviews ranged from ‘hey, how nice is this?’ to ‘this is cool’, but the general consensus was that from an engagement perspective -  the site is fairly pointless.

As such, this once again raises the question of why brands should ‘do’ social media in the first place. Quite simply, there’s no one answer to this because the objectives and reasons for trying to engage with consumers online will always be specific to the brand.

Last week I wrote a post about how offering a useful service or creating a branded utility was a good way of getting people to talk about your brand in a positive way online. UTweet can hardly be called a branded utility – and yes the critics are right in saying that there is little tangible point – but then being useful or innovative is not always the best fit for a brand.

One thing that social media can do very well – and companies such as Facebook are working hard to convince the industry of – is branded advertising. While most brands are convinced that online can work for direct response, it has not always seen significant spend for brand advertising because it is criticised for not having the emotional or entertaining factors that traditional channels such as TV have. Social media can deliver this, yet as an industry we are so quick to criticise a campaign that is exactly that – brand advertising.

Uniqlo’s target audience is young and tech savvy, so by creating something cool and shareable that shows off the new t-shirt collection – it is not pointless because it is relevant. Furthermore, just pick up any fashion magazine at the moment and you will see that they are obsessed with Twitter/Foursquare, because the industry likes to be seen as trendsetters. The average reader of Elle might not have a Twitter profile, but there is a chance that the editorial team write about it.

A few weeks ago, Cravendale also launched a promotion in which it provided people with their Twitter ‘health’ score – based on the types of words they use in their tweets. There’s a vague connection there – calcium and health – but I hardly think that your average milk-drinker really cares what their Twitter health is. This is another example of how important it is to be relevant and think about your audience – if a campaign resonates with them, the more likely they are to share it with like-minded people.

From outside the social media ‘bubble’, this is a good campaign. No, Uniqlo is not inspiring or instigating direct conversations with people, but they have created content relevant to its audience that will resonate with them enough to share and discuss it with their peers.

Image via Litmanlive’s Flickr stream.