How should your brand navigate Elon Musk’s Twitter?

The devil works hard, Elon Musk works harder and he’s asking those left at Twitter HQ to do even more. As the chaos unfolds, users flock to watch the Twitter of old burn.

But choking on the smoke are also the marketers tasked with the impossible goal of predicting what the most unpredictable man on Earth might do next. The “right” answer will only exist in hindsight. 

When is the right time to jump ship? Does it make sense to jump ship at all? Like any other decision, this one must be made with your brand’s principles in mind. Understanding what your brand stands for could make this decision that much easier. 

So, are you an optimist, an anarchist or an idealist? 

"Ultimately, companies that are unwilling to 'kill their darlings' and create a new version of success will either fail completely or evolve begrudgingly, after it's too late to capitalise on their previous success,” wrote serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist Josh Linkner in his book, “The Road to Reinvention”. The daily chaos of Twitter, by disruption standards, could be a necessary evil to reinvent its business model. 

While it has been able to influence culture and society at large, Twitter’s online ad business model is yet to rival that of competitors like Facebook and Google. Adjunct professor of business at Columbia Business School Len Sherman attributes the platform’s ad struggle to poor targeting abilities. Ads posted on Twitter are often not seen by the right audience, making them less effective than those of its larger peers. 

At the same time, Twitter has lost money in six of the eight years since going public. If it doesn’t create a sustainable revenue stream, we could see the death of Twitter with or without Musk.

For the optimistic brand, the inevitable change – good or bad – could be an opportunity to have an established presence in whichever form the platform may take in the near future. It could also be an opportunity to capitalise on the influx of traffic to the platform while advertising giants put an indefinite pause on their Twitter ad spend. 

What does this look like? 

In practice, optimistic brands could keep a low profile, maintain the flow of organic content and closely monitor user sentiment like negative comments before making any permanent moves. In a more daring approach, the anarchist brand could increase ad spend and speak directly to the mayhem on the platform. Those who choose the latter are placing a risky bet.

But the greater the risk, the greater the potential that you’ll be rewarded through brand recognition and brand recall in the future. What’s at risk in either case is reputational damage. 

It’s difficult to ignore the rise of hate speech on Twitter, the U-turns Musk has made since acquiring the platform and the ambiguity of his goal to turn Twitter into a utopia of free speech. The human cost of Musk’s actions also cannot be ignored.

He abruptly fired roughly 50% of Twitter’s staff and made headlines for spreading sensitive internal information to his staff by tweeting about it along with conspiracy theories. His actions call to question whether the platform will be moderated and to what extent. Idealist brands have no tolerance for this behaviour and are the first to quit the platform, leaving audiences that may have taken years to build as collateral damage.

It’s impossible to guarantee brand safety under these circumstances and brands will have to ask themselves if they agree with his methods enough to align themselves with the platform, regardless of its ultimate shift.

Some have opted in while others have chosen to place their ad spend in safer hands.

Which one are you? 

At the end of the day, Twitter is one of many marketing channels for your brand. The risks of staying on the platform may well be greater than the risks of pausing for a wait and see. You can always come back tomorrow.