As he prepares for the following stage of his Twitter takeover, which seems set to be finalized this week, Elon Musk has launched a brand new assertion on his intentions for the platform, and the influence that it’ll have on advertisers, who’ve been justifiably involved about Musk’s imaginative and prescient for the app.
As a result of as Musk has mentioned straight:
Musk has mentioned, straight up, that he’ll look to take away adverts from the platform completely, which might re-shape plenty of advertising and marketing approaches at many manufacturers.
However now, after visiting Twitter HQ, and with $44 billion about to be debited from his account, Musk has modified his thoughts on this.
As per Musk:
“There’s been a lot hypothesis about why I purchased Twitter, and what I take into consideration promoting. Most of it has been incorrect.”
Which, from, the primary line, feels a bit revisionist. Musk has additionally mentioned that he hates promoting, along with the above tweet about eradicating adverts from Twitter.
However once more, with the readability of debt, Musk has now switched up, and says that he truly desires to make Twitter ‘essentially the most revered promoting platform on this planet’.
“I additionally very a lot consider that promoting, when completed proper, can delight, entertain and inform you; it might present you a service or product or medical therapy that you just by no means knew existed, however is best for you. For this to be true, it’s important to point out Twitter customers promoting that’s as related as attainable to their wants. Low relevancy are spam, however excessive relevancy adverts are content material.”
Ah, so promoting is okay as long as it’s good. Hold that in thoughts entrepreneurs.
How Musk plans to implement this, and be certain that Twitter solely publishes good, related adverts is just not clear. However relaxation assured advert companions, Musk’s not going to chop you off from the app – regardless of his earlier and repeated statements that that’s precisely what he would do. That was simply hypothesis, in response to Musk. Didn’t come from him.
So goes the standard Elon Musk method – saying one factor, then fully denying it, and blaming outdoors forces for misinterpreting his statements.
The identical additionally pertains to his latest assertion that he’ll look to minimize 75% of Twitter employees as quickly as he takes over as ‘Chief Twit’ (as per his new Twitter bio).
But, after he visited Twitter HQ yesterday, he posted that he’d met ‘plenty of cool folks’ on the app.
Sure, he purchased a sink with him, for a random and unfunny sight gag. Wacky.
In fact, saying that he met plenty of cool folks doesn’t imply that he gained’t sack them. However it does counsel that Musk’s not going to be as militant in his method as he’s prompt in his earlier statements.
So what are his plans then?
To unite the world, apparently:
“The rationale I acquired Twitter is as a result of it’s vital to the way forward for civilization to have a typical digital city sq., the place a variety of beliefs might be debated in a wholesome method, with out resorting to violence. There may be at the moment nice hazard that social media will splinter into far proper wing and much left wing echo chambers that generate extra hate and divide our society.”
Musk additionally notes that he ‘didn’t do it to earn a living’. Which is fairly apparent, since he spent months making an attempt to renege on the deal, and likewise just lately famous that he’s ‘clearly overpaying’ for the app.
That’s one other factor that Musk is now making an attempt to minimize – Musk has spent months criticizing Twitter, its board, its employees, poking holes in its enterprise mannequin, and customarily, highlighting why it’s a disastrous funding.
However now? All smiles.
‘Along with adhering to the legal guidelines of the land, our platform have to be heat and welcoming to all, the place you possibly can select your required expertise in response to your preferences, simply as you possibly can select, for instance, to see motion pictures or play video video games starting from all ages to mature.”
Heat and welcoming. That’s undoubtedly not the Twitter imaginative and prescient that Musk has been portray.
However once more, the readability of debt.
The latter reference right here pertains to Elon’s imaginative and prescient of creating variable algorithms, which customers may then select to use to their Twitter feed. The idea is attention-grabbing, however whether or not customers will truly wish to go to the trouble of curating their very own expertise, versus simply testing what the app has on provide, stays to be seen.
And that’s the actual rub right here. Musk says that he has a plan, and he’s now making statements like these about the way forward for the app, and the way it may be a transformative, uniting expertise.
However making {that a} actuality looks as if a really inconceivable job. And whereas Musk prides himself on taking up the inconceivable, this one feels prefer it might be past even his attain.
It looks like, in some ways, Musk will probably be counting on his public persona to win over customers. However do folks actually like his wacky wealthy man shtick?
I don’t know, it’s a large, and really public job, which may harm Musk’s status, alongside along with his web price. The overall ideas that Musk’s been touting do make sense – user-defined expertise, freedom of speech versus freedom of attain, improved algorithmic concentrating on (ala TikTok), and funds, purchasing and extra, like WeChat in China.
Musk has pointed to all of those apps and choices as reference factors for his Twitter imaginative and prescient. However so has each social media app. Meta’s been making an attempt for years to duplicate the utility of Chinese language messaging apps, each platform’s making an attempt to work out TikTok’s secret sauce, and customers already do have plenty of alternative concerning what they see in-stream.
The issue is within the software. Western customers haven’t warmed to app functionalities in the identical method as Chinese language shoppers have, TikTok’s profitable as a result of its algorithms are higher and nobody can match it, and whereas customers are capable of change their feed expertise, in numerous methods, most can’t be bothered, and even when they do, engagement declines in consequence
So whereas Musk is eager to discover these items, every is, certainly, simpler mentioned than completed.
However it’s Elon Musk, if anybody can do it, he can. Proper?
The Musk period is about to start, and it’ll be fascinating to see how, precisely, he seems to enact any of this.
