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 affect 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 immediately:
Musk has mentioned, straight up, that he’ll look to take away advertisements from the platform solely, which might re-shape loads of advertising 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 improper.”
Which, from, the primary line, feels a bit revisionist. Musk has additionally mentioned that he hates promoting, along with the above tweet about eradicating advertisements from Twitter.
However once more, with the readability of debt, Musk has now switched up, and says that he really desires to make Twitter ‘probably the most revered promoting platform on the planet’.
“I additionally very a lot consider that promoting, when carried out proper, can delight, entertain and inform you; it could present you a service or product or medical therapy that you simply by no means knew existed, however is best for you. For this to be true, it’s important to indicate Twitter customers promoting that’s as related as potential to their wants. Low relevancy are spam, however excessive relevancy advertisements 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 make sure that Twitter solely publishes good, related advertisements just isn’t 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 keeping with Musk. Didn’t come from him.
So goes the standard Elon Musk strategy – saying one factor, then utterly denying it, and blaming outdoors forces for misinterpreting his statements.
The identical additionally pertains to his current assertion that he’ll look to lower 75% of Twitter workers 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 ‘loads of cool folks’ on the app.
Sure, he purchased a sink with him, for a random and unfunny sight gag. Wacky.
After all, saying that he met loads of cool people doesn’t imply that he received’t sack them. Nevertheless it does recommend that Musk’s not going to be as militant in his strategy as he’s prompt in his earlier statements.
So what are his plans then?
To unite the world, apparently:
“The explanation I acquired Twitter is as a result of it’s necessary to the way forward for civilization to have a typical digital city sq., the place a variety of beliefs may be debated in a wholesome method, with out resorting to violence. There may be at present 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 generate profits’. 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 aspect that Musk is now making an attempt to minimize – Musk has spent months criticizing Twitter, its board, its workers, 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 should be heat and welcoming to all, the place you may select your required expertise in keeping with your preferences, simply as you may 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 really wish to go to the hassle of curating their very own expertise, versus simply trying out 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 unattainable job. And whereas Musk prides himself on taking up the unattainable, this one feels prefer it could possibly be past even his attain.
It seems 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 an enormous, and really public job, which may damage Musk’s popularity, alongside along with his web value. 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, buying 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 copy 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 loads of alternative concerning what they see in-stream.
The issue is within the utility. Western customers haven’t warmed to app functionalities in the identical approach as Chinese language customers have, TikTok’s successful as a result of its algorithms are higher and nobody can match it, and whereas customers are capable of change their feed expertise, in varied methods, most can’t be bothered, and even when they do, engagement declines consequently
So whereas Musk is eager to discover this stuff, every is, certainly, simpler mentioned than carried out.
Nevertheless 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.
