Brace yourselves, because the Twitterverse, now known as “X,” has been hit by an Elon-gated whirlwind of change for the past ten months! Buckle up, because we’re about to take a joyride through the chaos, controversy, and comedy that Elon Musk’s takeover has brought to our favourite blue bird platform.
The Great or not so Great Rebrand: From ‘Twitter’ to ‘X’
July 14th, the day Twitter transformed into the new, slightly aggressive in my opinion, brand “X.” A new logo dropped on our phones just one day later, replacing our beloved blue bird. Now, we’re all in a flap – are we “tweeting” or “X-ing”? Personally, I’ll still be ‘tweeting’!
The Tweet Limit
Rewind back to July 1st when it was still the Twitter brand, Musk announced a daily tweet limit. 10,000 for verified users, 1,000 for the rest of us, and a pathetic 500 for newbies. It’s like he’s rationing our digital social snacks! Plus how is that encouraging new users to the app when they limiting how many posts they can see? Not wise if you ask me.
X Marks the Drop in Ad Revenue
Not-so-fun fact for Musk: X saw a 50% drop in advertising revenue. Advertisers weren’t too keen on promoting their products in the midst of hate speech, racism, and offensive comments. To counter this, Musk decided to sprinkle a premium subscription service for $8 a month on top which gets you a blue tick and more tweets a day.
Mute vs. Block
Then, there’s the stupid decision from X to remove the block button for a mute button, which is really worrying. People aren’t thrilled with the decision and worries are surfacing that muting an account isn’t enough protection against harassment, stalking and abuse. This move could also break the terms and conditions of app stores like Apple’s App Store and Google Play, meaning that if it does X may not be downloadable from these stores!
X: The Everything App
Elon’s grand vision is turning X into an everything app, like WeChat, where you can pay for things and even make video and voice calls.
Content Creators not Happy!
X rolled out an ad revenue sharing program for content creators on July 29th. Sounds great, right? Well, not quite. To be eligible, you’ve got to be a subscriber, be blue-verified, have at least 15 million impressions on posts in the last three months, or have 500 followers. Creators have been complaining about how much they are earning, from the tweet below it doesn’t look like it’s worth it.
EU vs. Elon: The Battle of Misinformation
In recent news, the EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk about complying with new laws on fake news and Russian propaganda. X is apparently the worst social media platform for spreading mis/disinformation. Maybe we need a “truth” button instead of a “like” button?
Was the Rebrand Worth It?
The big question remains: Was the rebrand worth it? According to Fortune Magazine, the rebrand may have cost anywhere from $4 billion to $20 billion. That’s a lot of zeros for people to still call it Twitter. Musk’s attempts might not be enough to bury the Twitter brand entirely. Will Twitter ever truly die? I don’t know about you, but I’m still hearing people call it Twitter and I think they will for years to come!
We would love to hear your thoughts on this, so leave a comment if you are in support of the rebrand or you are team blue bird! And if you are curious if your business should be on X or other social media channels (the answer is definitely yes), reach out to us we would love to chat.
