Musk Looks to Reassure Advertisers Ahead of Twitter Takeover, Outlines Elements of His Plan

As he prepares for the following stage of his Twitter takeover, which seems to be set to be finalized this week, Elon Musk has released a new statement on his intentions for the platform, and the influence that it’s going to 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 totally, which might re-shape rather a lot 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 incorrect.”

Which, from, the primary line, feels a bit revisionist. Musk has additionally mentioned that he hates advertising, as well as to 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 needs to make Twitter ‘essentially the most revered promoting platform on this planet’.

“I additionally very a lot imagine that promoting, when finished proper, can delight, entertain and inform you; it might probably present you a service or product or medical remedy that you just by no means knew existed, however is best for you. For this to be true, it’s important to present Twitter customers promoting that’s as related as potential 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 sure that Twitter solely publishes good, related adverts isn’t clear. However relaxation assured advert companions, Musk’s not going to minimize 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 accordance to Musk. Didn’t come from him.

So goes the same old Elon Musk strategy – saying one factor, then fully denying it, and blaming exterior forces for misinterpreting his statements.

The identical additionally relates to his current assertion that he’ll look to cut 75% of Twitter staff 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 ‘a lot of cool people’ on the app.

Sure, he purchased a sink with him, for a random and unfunny sight gag. Wacky.

After all, saying that he met rather a lot of cool folks doesn’t imply that he received’t sack them. But it surely 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 rationale I acquired Twitter is as a result of it’s essential to the longer term of civilization to have a standard 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 earn cash’. Which is fairly apparent, since he spent months making an attempt to renege on the deal, and in addition lately famous that he’s ‘obviously overpaying’ for the app.

That’s one other factor that Musk is now making an attempt to play down – 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.

‘As well as to adhering to the legal guidelines of the land, our platform have to be heat and welcoming to all, the place you may select your required expertise in accordance to your preferences, simply as you may select, for instance, to see films 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 relates to Elon’s imaginative and prescient of creating variable algorithms, which customers might then select to apply to their Twitter feed. The idea is fascinating, however whether or not customers will truly need to go to the hassle of curating their very own expertise, as opposed to simply trying out what the app has on supply, 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 concerning the future of the app, and the way it may be a transformative, uniting expertise.

However making {that a} actuality looks like a really unattainable job. And whereas Musk prides himself on taking over the unattainable, this one feels prefer it could possibly be past even his attain.

It looks like, in some ways, Musk will likely 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 might damage Musk’s popularity, alongside along with his internet 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, procuring and extra, like WeChat in China.

Musk has pointed to all of these 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 replicate 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 rather a lot 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 manner as Chinese language shoppers have, TikTok’s successful as a result of its algorithms are higher and nobody can match it, and whereas customers are in a position to change their feed expertise, in varied methods, most can’t be bothered, and even when they do, engagement declines because of this

So whereas Musk is eager to discover these items, every is, certainly, simpler mentioned than finished.

But it surely’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 be to enact any of this.