Best of times, worst of times: Agency leaders react to Elon Musk taking over Twitter

While the dust around Elon Musk’s final explosive Twitter takeover is finally settling down, things still aren’t exactly clear on the ground. The high- profile exit of Parag Agrawal and two other top executives has been followed by media reports that Musk himself will be serving as CEO for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps more pertinently to both users of and advertisers on the platform, Musk subsequently announced, “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.” In characteristic fashion, this was followed by a later tweet, in which he underlined there have been no changes in content moderation as of yet.

To be super clear, we have not yet made any changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies https://t.co/k4guTsXOIu

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2022

Musk as a self-described “free speech absolutist” has often excoriated Twitter’s moderation policy as well as its suspending of accounts for harmful speech and content, such as the permanent suspension of former US president Donald Trump’s account, which is expected to be soon restored, along with all other permanently suspended accounts.

This has naturally made advertisers anxious. Rapper Kanye West, for instance, was dropped by all his sponsors and partners following his anti-Semitic tweets. Musk, for his part, went out of his way, via Tweet, to reassure advertisers, even as the final takeover was happening on Thursday night in San Francisco, that he aimed to make “Twitter the most respected advertising platform in the world.”

Ad Senses

In the words of the man himself, “Something that I also very much believe is that when done right, advertising can delight, entertain and inform you. Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are content!”

This has allayed doubts in no small way.

Vivek Kumar Anand, Director – Business & Innovation, DViO Digital, says that Musk’s statement about the importance of relevance in the ads gives the entire chatter around twitter and his acquisition a very positive tangent.

“After all, advertisers need two things: quality and efficiency. In the crowded space of platforms built to deliver ads on transactional objectives such as clicks and visits, a platform that prioritizes delivering relevance to the consumer would be not only friendly but also one of the essential components in our media mix,” says Anand,

He adds, “Every advertiser afloat on the channel sea is searching for one thing – ROI, and I genuinely believe that ROI can be achieved only through relevance. Aligned and look forward.”

Bitesh Singh, Founder & CEO, SocioClout, believes that under Musk’s leadership; we may see Twitter becoming a platform where people can freely choose the kind of content that they want to consume.

“It is essential for Twitter to show ads that are relevant to the audience’s needs. In his words, ‘low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are content!’. That’s a good starting point. You know you are doing marketing right when ads/sponsored posts become desirable content for the audience,” he says.

But just how big is that audience?

Big Picture

One of the most heated areas of the debates and back and forth that characterized the Musk Twitter deal debacle, have been the former’s assertion that the latter’s user base consisted of 20% bots. Former CEO Agarwal and his team insisted that in fact, out of Twitter’s 230 million globally, only 5% were bots. That figure is still to be officially determined.

There’s also another thing.

“As per The Economist, out of $400 billion odd digital revenue, $300 billion belongs to Google and Meta. Then there is Amazon, Microsoft and a new rising star Tik Tok followed by Apple and Snapchat. Twitter’s share, as per Statista is just $6 billion. Let that sink in,” quips Neeraj Sharma, Senior Vice President, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi.

“So the question really is “most respected” also should be a viable option for reach and frequency.  Musk’s ability to drive growth and pioneering products was never under question but Twitter is just one additional social media platform right now with its own benefits and pitfalls,” he adds.

Keerthi Kumar, Business Head - South, FoxyMoron, says that Musk's thought of making it one of the best platforms to advertise on makes it an important aspect to look forward to with a majority chunk of their revenue globally coming from advertising.

“As a platform, Twitter has evolved by trying to improve the quality of content with innovations like super follow for creators to reward them for doing better content. Another challenge is the sheer volume of bots and fake accounts and Musk's attention to that and coming down hard on bots would elevate the platform and could make it better for users,” says Kumar.

Siddharth Devnani, Co-Founder & Director, SoCheers, also points out Musk is known to be a little unpredictable, saying, “Even the process of buying Twitter was full of twists and turns. Brands might see this as a more risk-prone leadership as compared to its predecessors. While Parag Agarwal and team were experienced old-timers in the organisation, Musk doesn’t have hands-on experience of heading a social media platform with a global user base. But to his credit, he is a successful serial entrepreneur.”

Future Proof?

“I am optimistic about Twitter’s future, but it will require massive changes both internally and externally. This will have an impact on advertising. Elon has already expressed his distaste for conventional advertising, so I hope he will find creative ways to advertise the right product in front of the right audience,” says Singh.

Kumar also adds, “He has also been in favour of a subscription service as well for users which could be a game changer for the platform as it will be an interesting turn to bring down the dependency on advertising. If the huge percentage of dependency comes down, it could lead to better quality and that could be a future that we all can look forward to or it could just be wishful thinking.”

“His vision to convert this into one super app is something we need to watch out for. If that journey starts, we might have an interesting advertising platform in the mix, especially when Amazon as an advertiser is growing and Meta just reported its first decline and its share price plunging by 25%, says Sharma, concluding, “Let’s just say - It’s the best of times. It's the worst of times.”

Post Script

It should be noted that since Musk’s official takeover, the Twitter account of Kanye West, whose account was suspended for a slurry of anti-Semitic remarks, has since been restored, though it is as of now unclear whether this has a direct correlation.