Pay-to-play Twitter: Is it time to #Panic?
After a firing spree that was as clumsy as it was draconian, Elon Musk is turning his attention to monetizing twitter. While the plan was to transition Twitter’s verification process from what the name implies — a process of verifying identity — to a feature of Twitter Blue starting on November 6, the feature will now be rolled out after the US midterm elections.
Many progressive Twitter users aren’t sticking around for the next chapter. After several false starts (including one when Musk first announced his intention to buy Twitter), a collective jump to the decentralized social media platform Mastodon now appears to be underway. But organizations and community groups can’t necessarily pivot to the same platforms as individual users.
Which leads to the question…
Is it time for progressive organizations to start panicking about Twitter’s meltdown?
The simplest answer is no. Why? Because strategic communications decisions should never be made from a place of panic.
The longer answer is also no, because when we look at what’s happening at Twitter, we need to do so in context.
And the big context for this story is scale. Yes, Mastodon is lighting up right now, with a 55% increase in users since Musk took the Twitter helm. But even after that jump, Mastodon’s total userbase is 655,000 — 0.3% of Twitter’s 238,000,000 users. Can Mastodon continue to grow? Absolutely. Might Twitter plummet to the earth à la MySpace? It’s entirely possible. But the scale of these audiences is important to keep in mind.
When we talk about Twitter and Facebook losing Share of Market (SoM), we are talking about the platforms that have dominated the social media landscape for over a decade. While following changes in sentiment towards these platforms, time spent on the platforms by demographic, and number of downloads are important metrics to follow, when we are plotting the decline of a social media giant, it will almost certainly be a story of incremental loss, not one of the bottom falling out.
While we wait to see what fate awaits a Musk-led Twitter, Mastodon is not the only platform that awaits members of the #TwitterMigration. CounterSocial and WT.Social are among the other platforms that disillusioned tweeters are turning to. The thing these platforms all have in common? A promise to not mine user data and the offer of an ad-free platform.
By attempting to overtly monetize Twitter, Musk could be driving a counter-push against the monetization of personalized data and the capitalization of unpaid social labour. In doing so, this move could create a seismic shift in how users understand themselves in social media spaces: increasing the emphasis on the social aspect of the space. What remains to be seen is how or if organizations and community groups can meaningfully participate in spaces that emphasize connection and don’t allow marketing.
But comms plans need answers now.
So what’s the answer?
First and foremost, don’t surrender your Twitter handle. Regardless of how you think this is going to play out, it would be massive brand risk to let your handle float off into the ether.
Now that Twitter is operating with half of its usual amount of staff and security has seemingly been reduced to a series of tweets from the All Powerful Musk, turn on your Two Factor Authentication and make sure you have a strong password (Love1234 will not save you).
Once you have your account secure, turn your eye to the strategy behind your organization’s use of twitter.
Here are some guiding questions that you and your organization can use to assess what role Twitter content should play in your Q4/campaign planning:
How big is our Twitter audience and how engaged are they with the content we produce?
What is our social authority/Share of Voice?
Is our audience on Twitter more or less engaged than our audiences on other platforms?
Should we continue investing in our organizational growth on Twitter?
If yes, why? If no, why?
Who is in our audience on Twitter that we aren’t reaching on other platforms right now?
How does this audience fit into our organization’s plans and goals?
If Twitter disappeared, how could we reach this audience?
What needs to be put into place to start growing that alternative path to this audience?
What is our ROI on Twitter compared to other platforms?
Are there things other than our audience that we gain from being on Twitter?
If yes, what are those things?
How else could we get access to these same resources outside of Twitter?
And some questions to make sure everyone is on the same page about the account’s future:
What are the risks of leaving Twitter and how could those risks be mitigated ahead of time?
What is our organization’s boundary with Twitter before we stop posting? (i.e. what type of behaviour, conduct, messaging from the owner or board would your organization not tolerate?)
Want to map out what comes next for your team’s social media strategy? We’re here to help!