Did Twitter just become the most innovative social media channel?
By Gemma Newton, Head of Data & Insights
In the office, we’re all talking about...Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. Quite literally.
Did Elon acquire the world's leading social microblogging channel because he wants full freedom of speech and to further influence the share price of his global brand, Tesla, or does Elon have bigger plans? We all have our predictions, but the future is, err, innovative…
After all, Mr Musk does own one of the most innovative brands in the world, and Tesla as a product has grown into a credible brand, due to Elon’s transparent approach. His tone of voice is straight talking, he is consistent and of course, a great storyteller (I mean, he only has over 80 million followers, no biggie at all). And we all know that the right story or piece of news, wins. Every time.
Tesla doesn’t sell as many cars as other long standing brands, but innovation is something that it has bags of, as well as ‘being first’ and driven by a revolution (no pun intended). With a compelling brand story, Tesla’s mission statement is, “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” With a strong set of values that most importantly, the brands stick with, Tesla’s core values comprise “doing the best, taking risks, respect, constant learning, and environmental consciousness.”
Even though all of the money in the world can’t buy good tweets, Elon certainly knows how to grow good business. The influence of Twitter has experienced dips and changes in the share market, but today since the acquisition, Twitter has seen a positive increase in share price:
A graph showing Twitter’s Increased share price
The Wall Street Journal reported that Shares of the company rose 5.7% Monday, to close at $51.70, which is their highest closing value in around five months. The stock rose above $52 at one point on Monday before the deal was announced later in the trading day, when it the deal came to $44 billion.
Evolution and growth of Twitter
From its inception, Twitter was primarily a free SMS with a social networking element. As such, it lacked the clear revenue stream that one could find on sites that made income from banner advertising or membership fees.
With the number of unique visitors increasing in 2009, it was obvious that Twitter was more than a niche curiosity social networking app.
In April 2010, Twitter unveiled “Promoted Tweets” as its intended primary revenue source.
Soon after this, businesses began sending tweets about promotions and events, and political campaigns discovered the value of Twitter as a communication tool.
In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Barack Obama dominated his opponent, John McCain, in the social media sphere. This one development virtually ensured that future candidates would include a social networking presence as part of their media strategies for their political campaigns.
Now, twitter is used by businesses, politicians and celebrities alike, but it’s also a space where community and fandoms can engage and grow. It’s simplicity perhaps encourages growth of these communities.
After various additions and tried and failed ways to make Twitter become profitable, Twitter finally became profitable in the last quarter of 2017, when it had 330 million monthly users. And as of late 2021, the service had 217 million monetisable daily active users.
Twitter’s Innovative Future
Elon has said in previous statements that once he acquires Twitter, it will be “better than ever..” , becoming a space with more freedom of speech. And Elon is excited:
The Board of Directors at Twitter agreed to the sale as they concluded that said that he would unlock the "tremendous potential" of the company. We can only hope the future is bright and disruptive in the right ways…
In the meantime, we share a couple ( because there are many) of Elon’s most controversial tweets:
The future is unknown, but what we do know is that this acquisition is talk of the digital town. With Elon promising more talkability (still to be defined), like Tesla, Elon is already standing by the values and vision of his new business.
People are talking; they are curious and they have opinions, good and bad, which Elon seems to welcome with open arms.