Twitter Turmoil: Everyone's an Expert

There is nothing wrong with opinions even uninformed ones such as those held by me on the England football teamamp8217s formations But to paraphrase Bill Bernbach an opinion only counts for something when it costs you moneyWhich brings me on to the strange case of Elon Musk and TwitterI profess to knowing little about Twitter how it works how it is moderated is it moderated what its strange hold is over people even why so many get so agitated on there But I do know one thing about it pretty well the whole shebang is funded by advertising and is consequently free to usersOne of the many other things I know little about is Elon Musk I know he is a brilliant engineer knows a lot about batteries and makes overpriced carsNowhere have I picked up on his being an expert in advertising Or even that he is remotely interested in the subject In fact just the opposite I do not recall ever seeing any Tesla advertising anywhere and indeed I seem to remember that Mr Musk was dismissive of what advertising might do to help him sell carsNot an ad fan in other wordsIf he had been or even if he had been remotely interested he would have known that Twitter is unexceptional as an advertising mediumI suspect that Mr Muskamp8217s reasoning on Twitter and advertising went something like this if that is he even gave the subject a momentamp8217s thought quotTwitter reaches a lot of people Twitter is therefore desirable to advertisers The EndquotSome of us know betterFirst Twitter does not reach a lot of people comparably speaking I am indebted to Rob Norman ex GroupM and resident genius on anything to do with online media forms for pointing out in The New York Times that Twitteramp8217s 2021 revenue was one twentieth Metaamp8217s and one fiftieth Alphabetamp8217s And money follows audience as we all knowBy the way Robamp8217s piece not at all surprisingly is excellent But then he is a bona fide expertAs Rob points out Twitter does not provide a safe environment for brands There are too many fights too much controversy too much hateThese are not words with which most advertisers wish their brands to be associated Advertisers do not much like risk when it comes to the content surrounding their messages And they especially do not like risk when the upside is so low After all you can buy the Twitter audience perfectly well in other places and with less riskIt is genuinely a mystery to me why so many people buy advertisingdependent or advertisingrelated businesses without talking to a few people who understand the ad business and then profess amazement and shock when it all goes wrongSo here is a free lesson It is not only about size and quality countsExperts get a bad press The UK Government Minister Michael Gove will have his Brexit referendum remark that quotthe British people have had quite enough of expertsquot live on long after he is gone In my youth the definition of an expert quotXquot the unknown quotSpurtquot a little drip under pressure was guaranteed a laugh at conferences We had lower standards in platform humor back thenAnd yet we can all agree on two things Elon Musk bought Twitter without an expert plan and advertisers are about to hand him his coatClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Twitter Turmoil: Everyone's an Expert

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Brian Jacobs

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