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Monday’s Marketing Minute: All Twitter, All The Time!

Happy Monday, y’all! We are officially into Christmas week. I’m sure most of you are home with your families, and busy with all the shopping and baking and family time that comes with the season. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, and that springboards you into your best year ever in 2023!  Since Twitter news is sucking all the oxygen out of the business news, I want to focus on some moves that Elon and crew have been making:

 

First, The Twitter Files. If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard of this, what is The Twitter Files? Basically, Elon has released internal communications that Twitter that informed its policy-making decisions. Some of the big takeaways so far:

  • Twitter internally acknowledged that President Trump had not violated its rules, but Twitter suspended his account anyway
  • Twitter was working closely with the FBI to censor users
  • Former CEO Jack Dorsey effectively ceded control of Twitter to the Trust and Safety team. Most major decisions were made by this team, and then presented to Dorsey to sign off on. This gave rise to many of the questionable content moderation decisions that the group made over the last few years.

The Twitter Files paint a picture of a company with no true leadership. It appears obvious that Dorsey wasn’t interested in leading, and the people that did want to lead, probably weren’t the best candidates to do so. I thought it was telling that Elon left this tweet after reviewing the information that went into creating the first few Twitter Files:

Elon has promised more Twitter Files, including one on how Twitter decided to moderate covid content on its platform.  That one should be very interesting.  In fact as I am writing this post, part 7 of The Twitter Files is breaking, you can follow it here:

 

In addition to The Twitter FIles, Elon has announced a ton of policy changes at Twitter.  So many that I will probably miss some.  He will soon roll out Longer Tweets, I believe he will cap the number of characters at 4,000.  Based on how this change is incorporated into current UI, I think it could work.  If a longer tweet was presented in my timeline as normal tweets are, with an option to expand and read, then I think it would work nicely. A lot of Twitter purists are opposed to this change, but I don’t have an issue with it.

Also, Twitter seems to be moving toward a sort of ‘social score’ for accounts:

I’m not sure I like the sound of this, I want to see what this idea looks like in practice. I’m very leery of any social platform trying to determine which of my followed accounts I should or should not see, how content should be presented, etc.  Just show me new content as it comes in, that’s all I want or need.

Also, Twitter made a big move against posting real-time location data for other users.  This move was made after a person allegedly attempted to harrass Elon by confronting what he thought was Elon’s car.  Elon wasn’t in the car, but his young son was. So Elon created a new rule for Twitter users that they couldn’t post another user’s exact, real-time location.  Several prominent reporters attempted to test this rule, and were immediately suspended:

 

So all of these moves, and the backlash, may have led to what happened next:  Elon left a poll on Twitter asking if he should step down as ‘leadership’ of Twitter.  Here’s the results:

Now it’s worth remembering that when Elon first took over Twitter, one of the first things he stated was that he was going to turn CEO duties over to someone else. So I am assuming he’s almost ready to do so, thus this poll.  And he likely has someone as mind as well, since after posting this poll, he tweeted ‘be careful what you wish for’.

So there is a LOT of news happening around Twitter right now, and a lot of you are worried about what the future of the platform looks like.  I will have a post up later this week or next that gives some strategic advice on how to best leverage Twitter under the Elon Musk era.

 

So that’s all for this week, but since this IS Christmas week, I wanted to share a video with you. This is an amazing video and a great reminder that regardless of how many presents we give or receive, we have already been given the greatest Gift of all.

@godandtodd

IN THE BEGINNING #christiangirl #christianboy #christiancomedy #pray #prayer #Eschatology #Catholic #Baptist #Evangelical #Evangelize #Methodist #Penecostal #Pentecost #Jesushasrisen #Scripture #bibleschool #courage #jesus #christ #biblestudy #christian #christiantiktok #jesuschrist #christjesus #church #jesusisgod #bible #god #holy #holyspirit #bible #Scripture #holybible #hell #worship #love #depression #jewish #jew #inthebeginning

♬ Epic Battle Trailer Music. – rukobaruna

About Mack Collier

My name is Mack Collier and I am a digital marketing and content strategist located in Alabama. Since 2006 I've helped companies of all sizes from startups to global brands such as Adobe, Dell and Ingersoll-Rand, create customer-centric programs, content and experiences. A long-time internet geek, I've been online since 1988 and began using social networking sites in 1991 when I joined Prodigy. Today, I help companies understand how new technologies like web3, crypto and artificial intelligence can integrate with existing marketing strategies to lead to exceptional customer experiences.