By Adedapo Adesanya
Marketing specialist and chief executive officer of A.M.D Consulting Group, an agency specializing in digital marketing, social media & customer acquisition, Mr Assil Dayri, has raised some concerns about Twitter’s outlook following the takeover by billionaire Elon Musk.
After six months of back and forth, the Tesla and Space X CEO completed the purchase of Twitter, paying $44 billion for the acquisition.
“Twitter users, advertisers, and its own employees have been watching closely for signs of what Musk will do in his first week as twitter owner.” Mr Dayri stated.
Twitter has been accused in the past of backing liberal and left-wing, which the company has always denied, and the mogul will attempt to lower the moderation so more voices can be heard freely. Backing this is the decision to bring back some of the controversially banned users.
“Tesla’s chief executive previously said that Twitter should not permanently ban its users and that he would reverse Trump’s ban. He has come forward with more information regarding this issue, stating this process would take at least a few more weeks. His friend Kanye West that was banned because of antisemitic posts, and President Donald Trump, for risk of incitement to violence following the riot at the US Capitol, all must wait to see,” Mr Dayri said.
“Mass account cancellation can be one of his first and disliked moves since he is enraged by the number of fake accounts, although this would likely affect the number of followers of many users. Also, he intends to start charging US$ 8 per month from users for the verified seal on their accounts,” noted the A.M.D Consulting Group chief.
The new CEO of Twitter has created a new “Twitter Blue”, a paid service aimed at anyone that looks for recognition. Musk’s expectation is that Twitter’s new paid plan will provide another source of revenue to pay content creators within the platform.
At the moment, the platform is free for highly visible personalities & celebrities. To differentiate public figures’ accounts from the millions of ordinary users who can get the badge, there will be a secondary tag to indicate the title of these people. Musk wants to bring a more democratic look into Twitter’s current system.
It was noted that although Musk has never been clear about his endgame with his tip-offs, many suggest the future of the app will be a sort of China’s WeChat, a super app for everyday life – with social, messaging, financial features, and much more.
It was also pointed out in the outlook that users could also be seeing the new Twitter setting up for businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments, which is a game-changer for many but is also a risky move. Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook Messenger has this kind of setup, although they are slowly shifting into multi-purpose platforms.
“The millionaire shared in the previous posts that he was interested in buying Twitter because he wanted to help the world and offer a digital ecosystem that everyone could access. He also admitted that this could be a challenge and might fail,” commented Mr Dayri.
“The fact that Musk has made a direct approach to the advertiser on Twitter suggests that he means to keep the business model on digital advertising, at least for now however, many advertisers have paused their campaigns, waiting to learn more about the future of the company and what that involves for its users,” he added.
Although many businesses have been hit hard by the global financial crisis and COVID-19, which means they have less money to spend on marketing, Mr Musk will still have Twitter to continue pursuing their advertising strategy. In July this year, the social network reported a quarterly loss of $270 million, even with the increase in the number of users.
This is a general market trend as Meta is also contending with slowing global economic growth, concerns about massive spending on the metaverse, and the ever-present threat of regulation.
Aduragbemi Omiyale