Viva PR: What's happening at Twitter?
It’s been just over a year since Elon Musk began his Twitter takeover, and the knives are definitely out.
Could this once globally popular social media platform now be on its way to meeting its maker and how did we get here? Let’s take a look...
Leadership – what not to do:
If nothing else, the first few weeks of Musk’s Twitter stewardship formed a case study of what not to do in business. He started out by cutting half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, before asking some to come back.
Then he issued an ultimatum to remaining employees that they’d need to commit to a ‘hardcore’ Twitter or leave the company.?
He said: “This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” and that “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” If that wasn’t enough of an information overload, employees were given just 24 hours to decide if this was right for them.
At the same time as this rapid upheaval, Musk also retracted Twitter’s policy that allowed employees to permanently work remotely, instead making it essential that employees work onsite – dismissing the fact many employees who’d opted into the remote policy had since moved out of commuting range to Twitter’s offices. He’s since performed a u-turn on this policy.
He also cut off badge access for everyone at the office, accidentally locking himself out. You could be excused for thinking Musk hadn’t thought any of this through…
If it ain’t broke
Then we move onto Twitter Blue, the $8-per-month product Musk chose to replace Twitter’s verification function with.??
The former ‘blue tick’ verification was a trust and safety feature designed to make it harder for disinformation to propagate on Twitter.?
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Instead, Twitter Blue allowed anyone with $8 and a smartphone to become ‘verified’ – this process effectively renders verification meaningless as a tool for users to establish the authority and credibility of their engagement on the platform, because anyone can pay for it.?
And that's not all your $8-a-month can get you – you'll also benefit from:
But are people buying it, literally?
The backlash to replacing what was a useful free feature with a useless paid one was as predictable as it was quick, and a movement to block all Twitter Blue users sprung up almost immediately.
As a business that has used Twitter for 14 years this month (ok, we're vintage) the Edit Tweet function is something so many of us have been crying out for. But having to pay for the privilege when other platforms offer it for free... we're not too sure if that's going to win users over.
We'll be keeping a very close eye on this in the coming months – will it leave Musk feeling just as blue?
What happens now?
These are just some of the issues Musk has whipped up in his short time at the helm of Twitter, and in many ways, they’d be completely fixable (with the right people in charge).
Whether Twitter’s astonishing reputational collapse under Musk can be fixed is a whole different ballgame – users are switching to other platforms in protest, will he be able to get them back??
??Social Media Manager & Content Creator ?? | ?? Aldridge Security | ?? Bury F.C
1 年I signed up to Blue to give it a go. It's ok. But just ok. I loved the edit button and extended character count, but I wish that there was an option to hide the blue badge, as it has become something of a stigma. If I see one more "this MF paid for Twitter" meme, I might snap. I cancelled my membership in April, it's now June, and I still have the blue badge. Not Ideal. For me, the bird app seems to be floundering, and I hope the new CEO that has been appointed can correct course and bring it back from the brink.