What does Elon buying Twitter mean for marketing?
Two weeks on from Elon Musk owning Twitter, it’s fair to say not everything has gone to plan. The appalling rise in trolling and calls for unbanning accounts aside, what does Musk’s takeover of the platform meaning for marketers?
Pay to be seen
The biggest news is ‘blue tick’ subscriptions. You can now buy your verification. This seriously dilutes the impact of the verification tick which has been around for many years (with rumours that this will still be identified somehow) but more importantly, it raises questions about Twitter being a free platform.
Musk himself has effectively stated that planned algorithm updates will reduce the visibility of accounts which are not verified - gating ‘organic’ visibility behind a, $8 per month paywall. This has two major implications, firstly adding an additional monetary barrier to small businesses with tight cash flow, and secondly, trust and identity are now questionable.
Do you remember your parent's warnings of ‘you don’t know who you’re talking to on the internet - well, now you really could be talking to an imposter who’s paid to be verified… Safety concerns aside, this also opens the door to spam accounts impersonating businesses and influencers.
note: since writing this article, Musk has banned several accounts because they have been ‘impersonating’ his own account. These impersonations included using a photo of Elon and updating display names. These accounts have almost exclusively been run by satirists and comedians.
Moderation and staffing
Musk has always stood by his claims that Twitter should be a community square for free speech, with moderation to tackle illegality (and little else). However, Twitter has now removed roughly 50% of its workforce which will no doubt impact moderation, despite the moderation team supposedly not experiencing the loss of staff like other departments.
“Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square, so it’s just really important that people have the, both the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,” - Elon Musk, April 2022
The knock-on effect of understaffing has already been felt, with Boring Company and Tesla engineers reportedly stepping in to support Twitter during the transition into a ‘new era’, suggesting that there will be challenges with the underlying technology moderating and managing the platform going forward.
As well as the staffing concerns, the #FreeSpeech trolls have upped their activity in recent days. Trolling in general appears to have increased (although metrics are yet to be confirmed), with political conversations spreading to previously unaffected hashtags.
This shift in behaviour is unlikely to impact many individuals who use Twitter, but be aware that your professional community may include the targeted demographics. In this instance, we highly recommend closer moderation of your community engagement.
Advertising
The effectiveness of Twitter ads has been a talking point for a long time, but we’re experiencing a resurgence in the chatter since the takeover. Large businesses have been complaining that ad performance is way down in comparison to the pre-Musk directorship, with signs of the downturn from as early as two weeks before the takeover was confirmed.
In contrast, small businesses have been quiet. To quiet… Some have even come out in support of recent changes to the platform, seeing the increased performance. So far, there has been little evidence to back up claims from large or small businesses, but we expect to see consistent patterns arise by the end of November 2022.
Shadowbans in a land of free speech
To his credit, Elon Musk does appear to have come through on some of his early promises (even if the outcomes have been questionable). A big talking point that Musk has been consistently noncommittal about is the unbanning of controversial accounts, such as Donald Trump.
We still have no word if Trump or other accounts will be unbanned - and we can be certain that there has not been an increase in bans since Musk took over. Despite this, a wave of ‘shadow bans’ (also known as ‘ghost banning’) has been highlighted by vocal anti-Musk accounts. This process refers to an account being restricted to the point that they cannot see notifications or tweets and have generally reduced access to the platform’s features.
This will never be confirmed, but the stark rise in accusations is telling. If your Twitter account has enough clout to be noticed by the big bosses at Twitter, think twice before you comment on Musk’s ownership.
Opportunities
With all the negatives thrust upon marketers in recent days, it’s easy to overlook the possible opportunities arising from Musk’s acquisition. For large businesses, the negatives certainly outweigh the positives if you don’t align with Elon’s views, but for small businesses, the story is a little different.
The Blue Tick subscriptions are another hurdle for large businesses to overcome, but while their finance and marketing teams deliberate their strategy, small businesses can subscribe and capitalise on the traffic of early algorithm changes. We don't yet know the impact of blue tick vs organic tweeting, although we think it’s safe to assume that blue tick accounts will receive preferential treatment.
Musk has also teased more subscription services, with increased advertising opportunities, expanding the Twitter ecosystem, reintroducing Vine and much more. Information is light on all of these possibilities, but again, Musk’s Twitter works FAST - so be prepared to act on what comes next.
Equally, we’re awaiting confirmation of changes to advertising algorithms before confirming any downturn in performance - so in the meantime, why not explore for yourself? Small budgets and businesses do appear to have an advantage at the moment, but it’s unlikely to last. If you have some of your marketing budgets to spare (yes, we understand how unlikely that is…), now could be a time to experiment.
If all of this feels a bit too doom and gloom for you, you’re not alone. In recent years there have been many conversations about Twitter’s place in the marketing mix. This may be your time to jump ship or jump on board. At the end of the day, if your return on investment (time and monetary) is positive, Twitter is still viable for you. If not, there are many other platforms which could meet your KPIs.
The unmentioned hypocrisy…
Before our final thoughts, there is one more part of this story to consider. Optics. If Musk and his views align with your brand, the takeover is probably going to impact you less, regardless of marketing performance. If you, or more importantly your audience, is anti-Musk, it’s difficult to not also be anti-Twitter.
Adding to this, for all of his free speech motivations, the purchase of Twitter was also funded, in part, by Saudi Arabia.
We are not going to start a debate about politics in this article, but it’s something you may need to consider for the benefit of your brand and public image.
So, what does this all mean for marketing?
In short, it’s too early to tell. For now, we can be confident of three things:
Twitter is changing rapidly - agility is no longer a ‘nice to have’, and strategies will need to be rewritten overnight when algorithm changes drop.
Your audience is not the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re a big business, a small start-up, an influencer or a celebrity - the algorithm has already been updated, moderation is short staffed and new trolls are appearing every day. Musk has also confirmed that bots are far more common than many thought. The solution - check who’s following you and adapt.
No one knows what’s coming next, seeming not even Elon. The motivation may appear clear, but there are changes coming that are fast for social media - and that’s scary. We have a simple recommendation for now. Keep an eye on your competitors, speak with your community and be consistent.
If you can react to your competition, the status quo won’t be heavily impacted. Speaking with your community will keep engagement high and show them they’re still your priority. Analytics will tell you when something changes and you need to act, as long as your content is consistent.
Twitter is changing - and we’re all keeping an eye on what happens next, but even Elon Musk would think twice before doing anything too radical… right?
