Bot-free paradise or pit of chaos? What Musk's Twitter deal may mean for marketers

In what Twitter executives are hoping is the final U-turn in the strange saga that has been Elon Musk oscillating between wanting to buy the social media platform and then changing his mind, the world’s richest man has finally decided to settle with Twitter, and buy the platform.

While the exact details are still being hammered out, the news is being greeted with great relief by Twitter executives, shareholders, and the millions of advertisers, both large and small, who have invested significantly on a platform known for its hyper-targeted audience reach and devoted, and often influential following.

Dewang Mulani, Manager, Business Development and Planning at Zoo Media, believes that as a platform, Twitter is poised for significant change under Musk’s stewardship, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into greater trust in the platform itself. “All we know is that the platform intends to become the flag bearer of ‘free speech’ - which in turn opens up discourse floodgates. Prima facie, if moderation policies on the platforms are relaxed (as per Musk’s standards), marketers and brands will become more conscious of risky content, polarized opinions and disinformation on the platform, compelling them to take their marketing dollars to other channels with better brand safety protocols,” he notes.

Bitesh Singh, Founder and CEO of SocioClout, strikes a more positive note: “Elon Musk envisioned Twitter to be a free space for all opinions and provide users with freedom of speech. With the recent development of the deal, Musk will enhance Twitter by providing new features such as defeating spam bots, making the algorithm an open source to build trust, and an authentication process to differentiate between humans and bots.”

“Advertising on Twitter will help you grow your audience, promote your products, drive traffic to your website, and more. It has features that help you increase traffic to your website, build brand awareness, engage your audience, and build personal relationships with them. Not just this, Twitter allows businesses to engage with their customer base in a cost-effective manner,” he says.

The hope is that with these changes and upgrades in the new features, Twitter will become a more reassuring platform for advertisers as one of the challenges with the platform has been bots and fake accounts.

Vivek Kumar Anand, Director – Business & Innovation, DViO Digital, says, "If you see the media plan of an agency, Twitter generally falls under the awareness channel and not as a performance channel. Hence, Twitter’s clientele is usually mainstream companies, which tend to be wary of their ads appearing alongside inappropriate content contradicting Musk’s vision of Twitter as a haven for free speech. The second issue is options are abundant with marketers in terms of new formats on performing channels such as Facebook reels and Youtube shorts to the new entrants like TikTok (on the global scale)."

“Twitter will continue to be a part of the marketing mix for most brands. With the opportunity of freedom of speech and the eradication of bots and fake accounts, it will be a safe space for marketers and advertisers. Twitter also helps with the virality of campaigns for brands as you can share information quickly and initiate a conversation with your target groups,” adds Singh.

Another point of interest is Musk has said that the acquisition of Twitter will be a significant step towards the development of X, Musk’s much-touted though little-discussed “everything app” (it should be noted that Musk’s first successful venture was X.com, a predecessor to PayPal, with Musk having retained the domain name).

Tanvi Bosmia, Associate Account Director, Brand Experience, SoCheers, notes that if Musk’s “everything” app does come to be, it’ll be a waiting game to see which geographies adopt it because there are very few examples of popular super apps.

“WeChat in China is obviously a prominent example, but we don’t really have a strong western counterpart. As for India, we haven’t yet started trusting a chatting app like WhatsApp to make payments, so getting people to choose one app to do multiple things will be a hurdle to overcome.”

“However, once significant user adoption is achieved, a super app could potentially take over all the apps whose individual services it's offering. Also, if Musk’s app is being created on the back of Twitter, as he stated in his recent tweet, it’ll then position Twitter as a prime marketing hotspot for brands. Although, the marketers will have to work towards creating targeted communications within a space which offers everything, hence attracts everyone and hardly has any consumer segmentation,” she adds.

“X, the 'everything app’ is, in my view, going to be a whole different playground. While there’s wide speculation that it’ll be another WeChat, in my personal view X will up the ante with community interactions along with free speech,” says Mulani, adding, “I imagine the app to provide immersive engagements, virtual reality interactions and P2P transaction ecosystems all borrowing from business streams that Musk is already invested in, to create a comprehensive, liberal and community-led environment.  Ultimately, ‘X, the everything app’ will attempt to build an app interface that keeps the consumer within its ecosystem in one form or another.”

“With new sensibilities behind Twitter, I envisage Twitter to retain the status of a digital town hall only this time with greater emphasis on communities. Twitter has gained visible relevance amongst the growing Web 3.0 community.  I expect this trend to continue with every industry built around communities. The subscription model suggested by Musk is yet another step in this direction of shifting focus and effort towards making Twitter a community-first platform,” says Mulani, concluding, “A community-based platform advocating for free speech - now that’s a hotbed for debates on topics that inform community action for good or bad is to be seen.”

Mitesh Kothari, Co-Founder, and CCO, White Rivers Media, points out that currently, given the uncertainty, advertisers are being more careful in evaluating the ad budget. "However, advertisers are optimistic about Twitter's commitment to removing bots and spammers. Being an ardent tech evangelist, Musk might turn the platform into a brand new playground, which will help bring a whole new crowd - another excellent news for advertisers."