Why can't I see the genius in Elon Musk's Twitter Marketing?
Elon Musk has created quite a buzz in the marketing world with his recent statement about charging Twitter users.
Let's be real, that's just wishful thinking on his part. Twitter thrives on its free access and trying to charge its users would be a death wish for the platform.
One of the reasons Twitter is so successful is because it offers open and free access to its audience. People can connect with their favorite creators and engage with a wide range of content.
Imagine if Twitter suddenly started charging its users for access. It would only drive them away to competitors who offer a similar experience for free. As they say, "If you build it, they will come. But if you charge them, they will leave."
Well... Now that we are talking about monetization. I need to mention that Elon's last scheme flopped.
😔 $8 Twitter Blue bombed.
According to the latest estimates, only a meager 200 thousand people have signed up for Twitter Blue. And from what I've observed on the platform, it seems like this number is actually decreasing.
😵 That's $1.6 million dollars a month in revenue. I am betting Twitter servers cost more.
What's even more intriguing is that many publishers are now reconsidering whether they should shell out those $8 for the blue tick at all.
Creators initially bought into the idea because it promised some extra visibility. But the reality is that it hasn't delivered on that promise.
Publishers who don't have that coveted blue tick but still have a strong following are actually doing just fine.
I know I am not renewing my blue tick (Got a yearly plan, so stuck with it for a bit).
Somehow Elon these days reminds me of the CEO of Better.com. He did something awful and paid for it for a long time. Some days ago when Better.com went public, it was one of the worst IPO failures in recent history.
Twitter works because it gives free and unfettered access to everyone. They use it to connect to their favorite creators (who seem to be paying right now).
The users are the oil. Ask them to pay and they will happily move over to the nearest rival. All it takes is 15 minutes to create a new signup.
By the way. I did sign up to BlueSky today.
What do you think? I just can't see the genius behind Elon because I am too poor and don't have any spark of marketing?
What am I missing?!
It's definitely not good marketing (neither is rebranding from "Twitter" to "X"), but I wonder if something else is motivating these moves?
For example: perhaps the company is speeding towards bankruptcy and they'd rather dramatically scale down a monetized user base than hold onto 100s of millions of eyeballs which are effectively just drowning the business in server costs and engineering operating expenses?
I'm not in the camp that idolizes Elon Musk or the camp that despises him. The guy obviously has a lot of flaws, but I don't think he can reasonably be accused of being dumb.
Either way, I actually want X to shrink. I also want all the other social media platforms to shrink. I don't think the world has been made better by having massive, centralized speakerphones that cater to dark triad personality types.