If your business has invested in launching and sustaining a presence on Twitter, the recent rocky ascent of CEO Elon Musk is surely creating some concerns around the theoretical water cooler.
You’ve probably started to have some conversations involving the following questions:
- Should we abandon our Twitter account and the platform itself before things get really weird?
- Is there a way to backup the work we’ve already shared there—and why?
- Should we take this work to a new platform instead? And is that a stalwart like Facebook and LinkedIn, or something newer like TikTok? Or entirely untested, like Mastodon?
These are all valid questions, and it’s good to begin asking them so that you’re prepared to contend with whatever outcome might arise. To get you started, here’s a bit of background that can inform your next steps:
- Many major advertisers, like United Airlines and Volkswagen, are withdrawing their funds from Twitter. This is a good sign that things won’t be sustainable for much longer. Even though companies, for now, by and large, are keeping their accounts active, If anything, marketers have only shored up their presence due to all of the attention that this shakeup has given the platform, and many are trying to capitalize on its last moments of fame and glory. If that’s not your approach, however, your time and resources might best be spent in other areas. In contrast, those leaving are doing so for moral reasons (as the platform is no longer insulated from hate speech), including GLAAD and the Anti-Defamation League. But before you decide…
- Yes, you should back up your account. (Backing up your account is fairly simple, so why not?) It’s good to have an archive of your brand voice and the work you’ve shared, if only for internal reference. For example, if you do endeavor to join whatever follows Twitter in the future, you might want to analyze what you would and wouldn’t do the same as when you first started tweeting on behalf of your company. This is a chance to go back, vet some opinions on your overall Twitter experiment, and take away lessons for your next moves.
- So, where do you go next? No frontrunner has truly emerged yet that can do everything Twitter did: creating community through a digital town hall format, all in tiny character counts. Unless you’re certain that a more visual format is right for you and you have the resources to make quality video content for something like TikTok, you might want to use this time to concentrate on other traditional platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Who are your audiences there and what opportunities have you been overlooking in the past? Should you be advertising on these channels to boost your following? Should you post to Twitter to let your current followers there know where to find you next? Focus on shoring up what you’re already doing, and by the time something like Mastodon proves itself, your audience will trust you enough to follow you there, too.
We hope some of these insights will help steer you toward the decision that is best for your company. If you’re interested in a full audit of your channels, how they’re performing, who’s active there, and what opportunities might be emerging for you in the months ahead, please feel free to reach out to the social media analysts at Mad 4 Marketing.