Despite Musk’s chaos, many advertisers continue to use Twitter
The purchase by Elon Musk of Twitter led the largest brands to stop advertising on the social networking platform. Many smaller brands remain, and they are happy to be there. Kaela Green (VP of paid social, Basis Technologies) says this is because the audience and content protections are still in place.
Green says that it’s only a small group of advertisers who have decided to pause to see if there’s more certainty about the direction of the platform. It has less to do with performance than reputation. But that’s where the real hit is. It’s the big stars who pull out their multi-million dollar budgets from the platform.”
She claims that the noise and fury of Twitter have not made any difference in terms of changes in its product or audience.
There are no changes in audience engagement
Green says that “Since Elon’s takeover we’ve seen a lot press and all the noise around Twitter’s activities.” “But, we haven’t seen any real shift in how the media connects with users or the way it performs for brands that we work alongside on the platform.
Green said that Basis is a media automation platform and intelligence platform. They have approximately 50 clients who advertise on Tweet. They should continue to do so, she said. It still performs well and it isn’t more risky than before Musk’s purchase.
She says, “The truth of the matter is that there have not been any changes to content moderation policies.” “There have not been any changes in brand safety or the algorithms and tools that monitor and control inventory and ensure that it maintains currency.”
Green is skeptical that this will happen. Green points out that Yoel Rot, Twitter’s head for safety and integrity, stated that his department has been mostly spared by the massive layoffs. ( This interview was conducted one day before Roth’s resignation from Twitter.
She says that Elon knows that this is very important. He must also ensure brand safety for advertisers in order to create a revenue stream. This is the key revenue driver.
CEO is the problem
Musk changed the blue check verification system, which was one of those protections. This allowed users to pretend they were major brands, including Eli Lilly.
This tweet caused the stock price of the pharmaceutical manufacturer to fall 4.37% on Friday, erasing more than $15 billion in market capitalization.
Green claims Musk’s desire for that system to be a revenue source has led it to lose its original purpose of being a protected voice for brands. “Ideally, Elon would move quickly and vigorously in order to improve the program to provide more accurate verification measures before allowing anyone to pay for the blue checks.”
Musk warned two days prior to the Eli Lilly fiasco that there would be more mistakes.
He is spending much of his time now trying to reassure advertisers but the promise of more problems won’t help.
However, Twitter’s popularity has not been affected by all the organizational chaos. Green points out that although some celebrities have left, there hasn’t been a mass exodus. It has not changed the way people interact with advertisers.
It still offers what advertisers desire
Green says that “the engagement rates that we are seeing… have remained pretty steady and in some instances it’s even increased, but not necessarily in a positive way.” “The platform isn’t causing some of the negative or concerning sentiments to increase engagement.”
Twitter’s greatest strength right now is its stability in audience size and engagement. Another reason is its unique position. Some users mention that they would like to go to Mastodon or another social media platform, but neither Mastodon nor any other platform offers the same level of instantaneous and immediate response as Twitter.
Green says that advertisers have the right to pull out, but they won’t want to do so if they are still getting what they want from the deal.
Deeper: Twitter’s death would mean that marketers lose an important and useful channel.
Even if all advertisers were to return today, it would not solve the company’s core problem. It doesn’t make any money. Twitter has only made a profit twice in the past ten years.
Musk made it more difficult. The market was hot when Musk agreed to buy the company in April 2014. The company was worth $44 billion. This was twice the market value in a time where social media stocks were undervalued. The amount of digital advertising that is being spent has dropped off a cliff. Even if Twitter brought in the same amount of money last year, it would not be enough to pay Musk’s debt.
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