If you follow the news, you’ve probably seen the story of Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk taking over Twitter. This development has produced quite a lot of controversy and many passionate opinions. 

 

But we’re not interested in that. 

 

We’re interested in the open letter he wrote, part of which directly addresses advertisers. Here is a screenshot of the section we’re talking about:

 

 

Here are four things we think this could mean for advertisers:

 

Twitter Ads Policies Will Change 

 

First, it’s important to know that Twitter has historically been keen on content moderation. With Musk letting go of major players like Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde and reportedly planning on letting go of 50% of his new employees, the culture shift at Twitter HQ will likely result in major changes in what advertisers are allowed to do on the platform. 

 

Though the criteria for what constitutes “low relevancy” and “high relevancy” has yet to be determined, advertisers should expect to play within a new set of rules against some new competitors.

 

The Algorithm Will Be Altered

 

If you’re a Twitter user, you’ve likely encountered ads that aren’t particularly relevant to your interests. Whereas on Instagram, for example, the ads and recommendations tend to mirror your interests more closely. So advertisers may be compelled by Twitter’s new 1’s and 0’s to stray from generic campaigns in favor of specificity and may have their content funneled to narrower demographics. Again, this is speculation!

 

The Return Of Vine

 

On October 30, Elon asked his followers, “Bring back Vine?” He referred to the now inactive Twitter-owned app that allowed users to post 6-second video clips. A large majority of them voted, Yes. We suspect that he’s aware of the enormous success of TikTok with advertisers and users and may want to revive Vine to compete with it. 

 

Some Advertisers Are Pulling Their Money

 

Various stats show a trend of companies cutting their ad spending on major social media platforms (due to economic concerns, not necessarily the Twitter acquisition). Now with the uncertainty of how Twitter will fare under Musk’s control, we’ve seen General Motors (GM) pause their ad campaigns on the platform until they’re sure of Musk’s plans. 

 

And IPG, the advertiser for “American Express, Coca-Cola, Fitbit, GoPro, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss & Co, Mattel and Spotify,” advises its clients to pause their Twitter campaigns. All this could result in a domino effect shifting the social media marketing landscape.

 

Whatever happens, at Big Deal Marketing, we’ll be following this story and the data so we can adjust our marketing services to best serve our clients! If you’d like to learn more about us, click here!