Clearly in The New European: Can Twitter survive?
Last week, The New European newspaper ran an article that looked into the future prospects of Twitter irrespective of whether the proposed acquisition by Elon Musk happens or not. I was asked to contribute my thoughts on where Twitter currently stands from a reputation perspective, and what may lie ahead for it.
Here’s what I said:
“Twitter has long faced the dual challenge of satisfying stakeholder returns and its evident lack of innovation. It has always ended up on the losing side. Whereas the likes of LinkedIn and Facebook are constantly re-thinking and re-imaging their platforms, Twitter has shown itself to be remiss of any such thoughts.
When the business world was turned on its head on 2020… Twitter came into its own as a key tool to help business leaders make informed decisions.
“But that doesn’t mean that it’s future is in doubt. Nor that users will fall away. If anything, the opposite is likely and we have the pandemic to thank for that.
“When the business world was turned on its head on 2020, decisions that once took days or weeks suddenly needed to be made within hours or even minutes.
“Twitter came into its own as a medium by which organisational leaders and key decisions makers were able to find real-time information to enable them to make the right call at the right time.
“It provided the immediacy by which they could make sense of what was happening and make informed judgements that would – hopefully – positively affect their business outcomes. It also became a primary communications channel between brands and their customers.
“LinkedIn and Facebook can provide sound thought leadership and news content, but neither are in the here and now like Twitter.
“Its position in the social media landscape is, for me at least, assured. But this comes with a caveat: Twitter needs to refocus on driving quality of content and steer away from campaigning for ad revenues that are diluting the user experience.
“Does this mean it should look at a subscription model? That’s not a bad idea for two key reasons. First, it would keep stakeholders sweet and pacify users. And second, perhaps more important from a wider social context, it would likely eliminate the number of trolls and online abusers.”
You can read the full article on The New European website: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/what-are-you-doing-twitter/
