Seriously, What's Up With Twitter?

Your social media strategy friends are exhausted by Twitter.

For months now, it seems that not a day goes by without a story about a major functionality overhaul, a controversial moment, and a hundred thought pieces about what to make about each of them.

Our crew at 万卓环球 (thanks to Andrew Soucy for leading the charge!) has been tracking the headlines and providing the best counsel to clients based on what we know at the time. But with the pace of wholesale change increasing, the environment is instable.

A few months ago, Twitter was literally instable due to technical issues while an "unprecedented" increase in hateful content on the site made people question their continued presence on it.

A slew of potential "replacements" popped up - Post and Mastodon, most notably. None of these channels have significantly challenged Twitter's real-time social dominance.

And in recent weeks, the fate of the legacy blue check marks vs. Twitter Blue subscriptions, the rollback of hate speech protections, and even NPR leaving the platform have provided fresh questions to tackle.

Along the way, Substack launched their Notes platform and Jack Dorsey's decentralized Bluesky is also now part of the Twitter-clone game. Still way too early to predict if either of those will have staying power.

[Related: This analysis of "Black Twitter" in the Musk era by Kimeko McCoy in Digiday is a must-read.]

So what does it all mean?

It depends on what you are looking for. And it depends on how comfortable you are riding the rollercoaster.

Without question, Twitter is in the midst of an evolution. Owner Elon Musk even teased that out months ago that the company would be doing a lot of things in the period ahead - we're seeing that play out in real time. So you have to answer some questions.

• Is Twitter Blue worth $8/month? Depends on what you are trying to get out of the Twitter experience.
• Is another platform worth considering? Depends on the audience(s) you are trying to engage.
• Is it "safe" to continue on Twitter? Depends on how you measure risk. Every communications and marketing activity brings some level of risk into your world.

The biggest twist on Twitter right now is the removal of legacy "verification" check marks. (Though the number of legacy verified accounts that quickly converted to Twitter Blue subscribers is quite low.)

That has led to tons of commentary from celebrities losing their verification. (However, several accounts for deceased celebrities retained their check.)

With the blue check mark switching from a verification of identity to a receipt of purchase of Twitter Blue, it's social and "social" currency has flipped.

The SECOND biggest twist is that Twitter, as a company, no longer exists. It's been renamed X Corp, a harbinger of Elon Musk's planned "everything app" with WeChat-level ambitions.

All of this just gets added to the list of considerations regarding Twitter. Bringing it back to where we started - the pace of change on Twitter over the past six months has been exhausting and head-spinning. This begs the question of if the platform is still viable for communicators and marketers to consider.

I wish there were clear, universal answers. Some will look at this evolution and be repulsed by what the channel has become. Others will see it as a new challenge to figure out.

It all comes down to how you calculate risk of ANY communications and marketing channel or program. Feels like change is going to continue to be constant on Twitter for a while. Plan accordingly.

Finally, because the Internet is undefeated in such things, here are four of my favorite memes about Twitter's recent chapter: