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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Elon’s Erratic Behavior, Money Troubles for ChatGPT, Social Media’s Age Divide

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and ready for another productive week! Temps here in the Heart of Dixie this week are expected to approach 100 on multiple days. I am hoping this will be summer’s last gasp, as temps, or at least the humidity, normally starts to fall after Labor Day. Here’s a few business and marketing stories that caught my eye!

 

Elon Musk is making it super hard to defend him these days, and I reallllly want to see him turn Twitter around. It seems like every decision he makes either seems amazing, or totally insane. His latest, is he wants to remove the Block feature from Twitter/X. He may not even be able to do that, as it seems Community Notes has flagged some of his tweets saying that Apple and the Google Play app store require that the mobile app for Twitter offer a block feature.  But I just don’t understand why he thinks that’s a smart move.  Unless he is simply saying something provocative to get people to engage with him.  If so, that hints at far more problems. But taking away basic features then mocking users for losing those features OR that they will have to pay if they want them back is simply not good business on any level.

 

So this story made the rounds a few days ago, claiming ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI could go bankrupt by the end of 2024. The article contends that it costs the company $700k a day to keep ChatGPT running, thus the financial calculations. Many have since chimed in that this probably wouldn’t happen anyway. The cynic in me wonders if this story wasn’t planted by OpenAI as a way to drive more investor interest in the company. Having said all that, it’s true that the userbase for ChatGPT is indeed leveling out. I suspect that will continue to be the case as other players in the AI space enter the game.

 

This chart forecasting social media usage by age group was a bit interesting. The only age group that’s forecast to see solid growth in social media usage over the next 5 years is Gen Z, the group born between 1997 and 2012.  So they would be age 11-26 today. Millennials will see very slight growth, but Gen X and Baby Boomers will actually continue to leave social media over the coming 5 years. I am playing this out as a Gen Xer myself.  The only social media channels I am active on these days are Twitter and LinkedIn, and I spend maybe 15 mins a day on Twitter and maybe an hour a week on LinkedIn. Actually I probably spend a total of 30 mins a week scanning my Facebook feed for any important announcements from friends, but that’s about it. Ten years ago, I was on social media channels for at least 5 hours a day during the week.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. I hope you have a wonderful week!

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.

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