Twitter Tag

After first testing them with select creators over the past month, Twitter has now announced that all Spaces hosts and co-hosts can access full space analysis.

As you can see in this example, Spaces’ new analytics tools include data on how many people tuned in to your broadcast, total speakers in each session, number of replays, length, and more.

Improved data insights could go a long way in incorporating Spaces into your broader tweet strategy, with more insights to go on when planning your audio content and seeing if the needle turns in terms of reach, community building, engagement, etc. .

It’s still hard to say how beneficial Spaces could be. The social audio trend led by Clubhouse has largely died out now, and I personally don’t think Twitter has advanced Spaces or the discovery of Spaces to the point where it’s a major component of the platform, or a big consideration in the Twitter strategies.

But some brands and people would be getting good results from Spaces broadcasts, and if you can maximize engagement with the format, perhaps as a complement to a monthly Twitter chat, or regular Q&A, or to provide information about your business process, then there could be potential here. Additional data on how valuable that potential is will definitely help in this process.

Twitter was also added playback statistics for recorded slots plus monetization tracking for ticketed spaces.

On another front, Twitter is also looking to help Spaces hosts maximize their engagement as a result of their audio efforts.

That could provide another lure for potential broadcasters, or at the very least, help users get more value from Spaces sessions as part of their broader Twitter engagement efforts.

What the future holds for Spaces, and Twitter in general, is unclear, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Twitter’s incoming owner, Elon Musk, scrap the format altogether as part of his impending cost-cutting measures.

Spaces seems to add a level of value, but then again, looking through the Spaces tab, there aren’t many people tuning into each session, and it seems to be losing priority amidst the other platform updates and features.

But perhaps, there is a fit there, and there could even be more potential, if Twitter can correctly match its theme and highlight the most relevant spaces for each user as in progress.

Twitter has never been good at this (see also: live streaming), but perhaps, as things change on the app, the spaces will see new life as well.

Until then, you have new analytics to experiment with and learn more about how your spaces are performing.

After several months of testing, Twitter is now making its Tweet reply ad placement option available for all app install campaignson iOS and Android.

As you can see in this example, the option places app install ads after the first reply under a Tweet, giving app developers a chance to reach users engaged in a relevant conversation.

As noted, Twitter began testing the option in October, and in its first experiments, advertisers reported increased impressions, lower cost per install, and more attributed downloads.

Reddit launched a similar placement last September, with conversation placements also aimed at catching engaged Redditors in post-reply threads.

There’s some logic to this, especially if you’re able to place your ads based on keyword or similar mentions, ensuring your promotions appear in contextually relevant and, ideally, highly active discussions. Targeting is the real key, and it will take Twitter a while to get this element right, but there is potential to reach the most interested users.

But something more interesting is this: Eventually, Twitter may also seek to provide tweet creators with an avenue of direct monetization through this ad placement.

This was actually confirmed by Bruce Flack, Managing Director of Revenue Products at Twitter as part of the initial test, which stated that eventually creators will be able to sign up for this ad placement and get a reduction in revenue generated as a result.

that aligns with broader Twitter strategy creator monetization campaignwhich further encourages its most popular users to tweet more often, while it could also be interesting to allow a retrospective activation of these, on a selective basis.

For example, right now when a tweet goes viral, you’ll often see the creator of the tweet add an additional reply, highlighting their SoundCloud or a charitable cause that they can then draw more attention to as a result of this tweet.

But what if you could directly monetize all your viral tweets and get paid for their performance?

It could also fit into Elon Musk’s monetization plans for the app. Musk has previously noted that he wants to explore monetizing embedded tweets, as part of a bigger effort to get high-profile users to tweet more regularly.

Allowing all creators to directly monetize their reply threads could be another part of it.

At the moment, however, it is only available for app install campaigns. Twitter says it will look to expand the option to more placements in the future, based on the performance of this initial launch, while the creator monetization element is not yet in play.

We will keep you informed of any developments.

In a surprising turn of events, Elon Musk now appears poised to become the sole owner of Twitter, after Twitter’s board of directors was set to vote over the weekend to accept his $44 billion takeover offer. .

Initially, it appeared that Twitter would rebuke Musk’s offer, even initiating a ‘poison pill’ mitigation process to prevent Musk from acquiring the company through a stock purchase. But Twitter’s board of directors reportedly ultimately felt they had no choice but to accept the billionaire’s offer, meaning that Elon himself will now be the one to set the rules and greenlight the way forward for the platform.

So what does that mean?

Well, no one knows for sure, probably not even Musk himself, who recently admitted that he’s still working on his plans.

But we do have some pretty clear pointers about Musk’s intentions, ranging from restoring “free speech” to fighting bots.

Here’s a look at Musk’s key areas of focus, based on his public statements so far, and how he might address each one.

Restoring freedom of expression

Free speech has become the main focus of the Musk-Twitter push, with the Tesla owner publicly denouncing Twitter’s past actions to silence certain users.

Musk also has criticized Twitter’s decision to veto former US President Donald Trumpwhile he has also had his own number of problems related to his comments and statements on Twitter.

Will Twitter take a different approach under Musk?

You have to suspect that it will, but how, exactly, that will look is anyone’s guess.

Musk’s main argument here is that by making Twitter privately owned, that will allow him to be more free in what he allows, since he won’t be beholden to shareholders or advertisers in this regard.

But ads, of course, are Twitter’s biggest moneymaker: Looking at Twitter’s Q4 2021 results, ad sales made up the vast majority of Twitter’s revenue.

On the other hand, under private ownership, Twitter will not be under the same revenue pressures, in terms of increasing revenue and improving performance in line with shareholder expectations. But Elon is still paying $44 billion for the company. I would assume that you would like to recoup at least part of that expense.

So what would be a profitable revenue target for the platform?

Looking at Twitter’s numbers, it’s still paying some hefty operating costs, with the company reporting an operating loss of $493 million for fiscal 2021.

That means that while Twitter generated $5.08 billion in revenue for the year, it actually paid $5.5 billion in costs.

Some of these expenses were one-offs (such as a ‘one-time net charge related to $766 million litigation’ due to a shareholder class action lawsuit), but breaking them down into individual items, some of Twitter’s key costs for 2021 were:

• Research and development: $1.2 billion
• Sales and marketing: $1.2 billion
• General and Administrative – $584 million

Factoring in cloud and other infrastructure costs, you’re looking at a baseline operating cost of at least $3b-$4b, so at a minimum Musk will need to generate at least that to avoid costing you money, and no ads. It will be a difficult question.

So how will Musk do it?

I suspect this is the answer:

Musk’s view is that by authenticating real people and giving them a check mark, that will lessen the impact of bots (another of his key focus points) and force people to pay for Twitter Blue, at $3 per month, it could be the way he does it.

But would people really pay for Twitter? Does anyone really need the app enough to justify a $3 per month charge?

Right now, very few people are signing up for Twitter Blue, with the lure of some custom color options and ‘undo tweets’ not really moving the needle for regular users.

But if Musk cut everyone off unless they paid the fee, maybe that would get more people to actually pay, and if a lot of prominent users ended up paying, that would entice others to sign up, so you wouldn’t miss a thing.

Twitter currently has 217 million daily active users, which, if each paid $3 per month, would bring $7.8 billion in annual app revenue. Of course, not all of these users are going to pay, but I also suspect that Twitter is actually a very important tool for those who use it, even if its user count pales in comparison to Facebook or Instagram.

Let’s say only half of these people sign up; That’s still $3.4 billion in annual revenue, no ads, and with Musk also promising to cut costs, whether it’s getting rid of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters or eliminating board member pay, there could be ways. to make this a working option.

But it would be a big risk. If Elon decided to block all non-paying users, that could also cause conversations to move to other free networks, potentially leaving Twitter with nothing and reducing its $44 billion investment to zero very quickly.

But I do think it could work, and if Musk can too add new features, as it saysTo make that $3 monthly investment even better, Twitter could very quickly become a hub for more engaged, active, and responsible conversations. And as I say, I suspect that a lot of people in the media, at least, would be willing to pay to participate in that group chat.

This is the kind of bet I think Musk will make, and while it could reduce Twitter’s presence in the social media sphere, by shrinking its user base, it could still ensure that it remains a relevant and valuable entity, and potentially profitable. for Musk in the long run.

And ultimately, that could also be Musk’s path to free speech. With every user registered and accountable, and only paying users allowed to enter the app, that puts more responsibility on each contributor, while trolls couldn’t easily create new accounts just to attack and harass others.

It would be free speech with responsibility, which may not be exactly what free speech advocates have been calling for. But it appears to be one of the only viable ways for Musk to achieve some of his key goals stated here.

Algorithm open source

Another element of Musk’s Twitter takeover push has been algorithmic transparency and giving users the opportunity to understand, and even control, how the system decides what’s most relevant to them.

According to Musk:

“Any changes to people’s tweets, whether or not they’re emphasized, that action needs to be made apparent, so that anyone can see that that action was taken, so that there’s no kind of behind-the-scenes manipulation, whether it’s algorithmic.” or manually. .”

Twitter is already exploring through its blue sky initiativeand the concept that regular users might have a better understanding of such systems makes sense, though the complexities may be lost on us non-coders and regular people (i.e. the vast majority of Twitter users) who we just want to see the latest tweets.

A key risk on this front is that by opening up its algorithmic parameters, Twitter would allow users to identify key aspects that they may or may not want to emphasize within their experience. Which makes sense, for example, to remove mentions of ‘The Kardashians’ from your feed, but what if you wanted to remove ‘liberal bias’ or other elements that might contribute to the echo chamber effect?

It could also lead to new qualifiers being integrated into algorithms that may not deliver pleasing or even legal results.

TikTok, for example, has faced criticism in the past for their efforts to suppress posts from users with ‘bad teeth’, ‘big bellies’, physical disabilities and more. The fact that this is even possible suggests that TikTok’s system can categorize content based on such parameters, and with those kinds of options in place, that could lead to some worrying use cases in the app.

It’s not an easy road, and Musk will have a lot of work to do on this front, but again, Twitter is already moving down this path, and Musk’s momentum will likely see the bluesky project develop much faster.

Bot Removal

Musk is also interested in weeding out bots, for which, as noted above, a new checkmark system for all users could help in many ways.

Twitter has been working to address its bot issues for years, though the feeling is that it could do more, with bot accounts seemingly easy to identify for most users.

The question in the past has been whether Twitter really wants to address bots or whether it is more beneficial for the platform to continue to count them as ‘active users’. With market pressure on Twitter to increase usage numbers, perhaps turning a blind eye to some of these bot profiles will help shore up those numbers.

Going private removes that emphasis and Twitter could, at least theoretically, now crack down on bot accounts.

It looks like Musk will push for that, and it’s another area that Twitter has been developing, while a shift towards more accountability for all human users will, again, be beneficial here.

These are the three key pillars of Musk’s Twitter push, or at least the ones we know about so far, and it looks like these will be the focal points of his platform’s leadership when he takes over the app.

Which could be soon, and while the deal is still subject to various approvals and processes, it looks like we’ll find out very quickly what Musk’s plans are for the app.

Mother’s Day is coming up on May 8 (in the US and Australia), which means you only have a few days to make your pitch to Mother’s Day shoppers and maximize your sales for the event.

Lucky for you, many Mother’s Day shoppers wait until the last minute, and if you’re trying to think of ways to make that final push, Twitter has shared some new insights and trending notes to help boost your campaigns.

First of all, Twitter has shared the 10 most popular Mother’s Day hashtags, based on tweet activity in 2021:

• #Mother’s Day
• #Happy Mother’s Day
• #Gain
• #MothersDay2021
• #Gift
• #Sunday of maternity care
• #Gift Ideas
• #fashionjewelry
• #Competition
• #Mom

Of course, the effectiveness of hashtags on Twitter is up for debate, and Twitter itself even recommends that brands not use hashtags at all in certain cases. But if you were trying to hold on to the key search trends around the event, I’d suggest running a giveaway is probably the best option, based on these tags.

As for when to start tweeting about Mother’s Day, Twitter says brands should share their campaign messages “two or three weeks in advance, with an extra push the week before Mother’s Day for the inevitable last-minute shoppers”.

So basically now, or last week if you have a Mr. Fusion equipped Delorean in your garage.

Finally, Twitter shares some notes on what you should be tweeting before Mother’s Day.

• Gift ideas for mothers, wives, grandmothers, stepmothers and caregivers. Classic gifts include flowers and jewelry, but don’t be afraid to branch out
• Experiences and offers, for example, a Mother’s Day brunch or afternoon tea.
• Mother’s Day Card Ideas and Ways to Say Thank You
• Movies and entertainment for Mother’s Day
• Your own story: are you a mother who owns a business or did your mother inspire you? Share your story for a more authentic Mother’s Day Tweet

I mean, expressing your undying gratitude for your mom’s advice will probably take a few more than 280 characters, but if you can, or if you think your mom might read your Twitter thread, go for it (note that the ‘wives’ mention above comes directly from the Twitter post, I just left it because I thought it was hilarious).

In essence, now is the time, and if you want to give Twitter advertising a try before Elon shuts it down, maybe it’s worth running a campaign to test and see what you can get in terms of reach and response with your ads. bells.

I’m not sure Twitter is the best platform for such a push, but it depends on your product and your focus, and these notes will help you formulate your approach to tweeting.

You can follow more of Twitter’s Mother’s Day marketing tips here.

Well, I don’t think anyone saw that coming, not in a realistic sense at least.

But obviously Elon Musk is serious about his efforts to better align Twitter with free speech principles, with Tesla’s billionaire CEO offering a hostile $43 billion takeover bid for the app.

According to Musk’s SEC memo:

“I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the world, and I believe that free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. However, since making my investment, I now realize that the business will not thrive or serve this societal imperative in its current form.

Musk has been to staunch supporter of freedom of expressionand has often criticized Twitter’s moderation efforts, including its decision to ban former US President Donald Trump.

Last week, before it was revealed that Musk was buying Twitter stock (which he’s been steadily accumulating since January), Musk noted that Twitter needed to adhere to “free speech principles” to truly serve its purpose.

That’s apparently the impetus for Musk’s takeover bid, with Musk now outlining a vague plan to make Twitter privately owned, to reduce its dependence on shareholders and advertising dollars, allowing it thus to make truly independent decisions for the good of public debate.

“I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium to the day before my investment in Twitter and a 38% premium to the day before the announcement my investment. My offer is my best and last offer and if it is not accepted, I will have to reconsider my position as a shareholder.

Market analysts say Musk’s bid is low, given that Twitter shares recently hit $70. But it could still be tempting, and it’s enough to at least be taken seriously as a legitimate takeover bid.

If Musk’s takeover offer is accepted, Twitter will likely see significant changes, and really, all bets are off as to what happens to the app next. But if the offer is rejected, Musk hinted that he would likely retire from the business altogether.

“If the deal doesn’t work out, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I will have to reconsider my position as a shareholder. It’s not a threat, it’s just not a good investment without the changes that need to be made.

It will be interesting to see if this also includes Musk removing his twitter accountwhich currently has over 81 million followers, and is a key media tool for the sometimes eccentric billionaire.

Following the revelation that Musk had become Twitter’s largest individual shareholder earlier in the month (until Vanguard Group bought more shares to overtake him), Musk began polling his Twitter followers with questions about how to “fix” the platform. Musk was then reportedly advised to stop tweeting critical comments, as a pending Twitter board member, which later led to Musk withdrawing his interest in joining the board entirely.

It appears Musk was unhappy with the response he received from Twitter management, as he is now looking to wholesale replace them and start afresh with the company.

It’s an extraordinary move, and one that again raises questions about the disproportionate power of the billionaire class. Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, for example, owns the Washington Post, and some have suggested he is now more supportive of Bezos’ positions in his editorial coverage (note: independent studies have found little or no evidence of bias in Post reporting since Bezos’ acquisition).

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wields significant power as the owner of several of the most widely used social media apps, while Apple and Google, although not independently controlled by a single wealthy founder of the Similarly, can also exercise a level of control over the reach of media through their heavily used digital properties.

In Musk’s case, he clearly doesn’t like what Twitter is doing, and being wealthy enough as he is, he’s looking to do something about it, which could have far-reaching consequences, in many ways.

Overall, I’d say the likelihood of Musk’s takeover offer being accepted is not high – but again, I never would have guessed that Musk would make such an aggressive push into Twitter shares, or even that it would go into hostile takeover mode for the application.

So who knows how it goes? In some ways, it seems like just enough of an offer to be taken seriously, but not enough to actually be accepted.

But maybe Twitter will become “Tesla Social,” and memes and jokes about “420” (note Musk’s bid price) and all the other “edgelord” trends will dominate in this new sewer led by “freedom of expression”.

It’s pretty ominous to think about – but maybe it could happen, which could spell the end of Twitter as we know it.

Fake news, harassment and misinformation have always existed, but with the explosion of social networks they acquired greater dimensions. Now, we wonder how the Internet impacts our decisions, good coexistence as a society and social behavior.

The billionaire owner of Tesla, Elon Musk, put this issue on the table by launching a survey on his Twitter account questioning the platform about its promise regarding freedom of expression. Immediately after doing this, this week, he bought boxes and 10% of Twitter shares. Curious, right?

The results of that survey were even more interesting. The majority, 70%, does not believe that Twitter if it correctly follows the principle of freedom of expression. In any case, it is a biased survey since it was aimed at Musk’s followers, for which it has no scientific basis.

Freedom of expression is essential to a functioning democracy.

Do you think Twitter strictly adheres to this principle?

-Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022

During this week, Musk also made more controversial tweets saying he would work to “make significant improvements to Twitter,” and took another poll, now praying if his followers wanted an edit button. Quickly, Twitter said that Musk will not decide on the shape of the products and the edit button if he developed long before the billionaire’s survey.

The fact is that Musk has a history of complaining about Twitter’s moderation tools, which is why the social media platform didn’t remove even his anti-vaccine posts and bad “jokes” involving Hitler, including. For Musk, due to the moderation tools, the new CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, is compared to Joseph Stalin, for example.

Blaming Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube (and even generations past and present) for preventing our expression from being released and only going to the surface of the problem. Manipulation, fake news and even censorship seem to be the daily breakfast for all social media users.

The big question eg: who to believe? How can we open a trust in our own timeline? How to prevent personal injury from it? In this article, we will discuss the mysteries about our freedom of expression and social media today.

A brief overview of the political landscape

One of the first episodes in which this topic began to be discussed was with the Cambridge Analytic platform, which showed how the US Republican Party improperly used Facebook data to create voter profiles in elections from 2014.

The reaction was the first indication of how social networks are capable of shaping behavior. And he also led to many conspiracy theories, which asked the same thing: if we are manipulated through social networks, do we really have freedom of expression?

In other scenarios, political leaders such as the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, have shown their price for other social platforms, such as Telegram, which the Brazilian justice system wanted to block. However, other channels, such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, have accused Bolsonaro of violating the rules to prevent the spread of erroneous information.

But not everything is bad news and scandals. Yes, many times social networks were very useful in political scenarios.

For example, in 2011 Facebook and Twitter were used to organize an uprising against the Egyptian government.

Also, in Venezuela (where I am from), social networks are very important for those journalists who have been excluded from conventional media, such as radio and television.

In the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian influencers are using TikTok to share footage of the war when mainstream media wasn’t. But at the same time, the platform was also used to share a lot of fake news about the war.

What about us, brands and digital professionals?

Is there room for us in this conversation? Including targeting both sides of the coin, it is clear that there is much debate about social media behavior and freedom of expression (and this debate goes far beyond a Twitter poll).

This is something bigger for us, as digital professionals. If an online environment is not secure and has no credibility, are you going to communicate your brand there?

With billions of people using social media every day, it’s impossible for our companies not to be there. So it’s also our job to ensure a healthy digital place for everyone, right?

LinkedIn recently blocked jobs exclusively for black and indigenous people in Brazil. Many large companies protested, federal prosecutors opened investigations, and activists sued.

I want to know that LinkedIn will reverse it in focus, it will have to be changed in politics for Latin America. At the same time, other social media platforms, like Facebook, pushed annoying content into their algorithms just because it has more engagement, and this led to people consuming more time-consuming ads.

The scandal led to internal documents being released to the press showing, for example, that the company did nothing when it learned that Instagram could help develop mental disorders among adolescents. Facebook included had changed its name to Meta as a way to resolve the crisis, according to the analysis of specialists.

These two episodes show that social media platforms are struggling to moderate content posted by their users. They are businesses and they want to have money. This is not a problem. But what about your social responsibilities?

media responsibility

Another controversy occurred in 2021 during the US elections. Twitter determined that Trump’s comments on the social media platform incited violence in the US capital. Subsequently, the account was permanently banned from the platform.

I don’t want to make a good statement if it was a decision to remove Donald Trump’s profile from Twitter or not. The only one that is clear to me is: what we say on social networks has a real impact on reality. For that reason, we should start thinking about accountability.

Something that should concern us more is polarization, which has been a big problem in recent years. Why? Because polarization really impacts democracy, and also attracts hate speech.

Facebook took note of this and saw it as a business opportunity, for example.

But it does not help us to think in the logical way, but in a very biased way. As I said at the beginning, manipulation has always existed, but with social networks it seems that people have fewer filters to know what is true or reliable.

Fighting against fake news and the algorithm

With social media, we’re on both sides: we create content at the same time we consume it. A phenomenon that did not occur with television, cinema or radio, where someone spoke for the masses. Now, the masses talk and consume and share (which makes some good things go viral, like a donation drive, but also bad things, like fake news and hate speech).

We, as creators and consumers of content, have a great responsibility to take care of the type of information that we digest every day. You will be open to identifying misinformation and fake news as vital elements in spreading polarization on the Internet.

Do you want to learn how to identify fake news and misinformation? Here are some tips:

• Check your unconscious bias. Fake news tends to reinforce negative stereotypes. So ask yourself: does this bother me because it’s true? Or am I just being biased?
• It is argued that there are too many misspelled words or grammatical errors, doubt. The same goes for videos or images. If they lack a lot of quality, they may not be true.
• Look at the original sources: disinformation is also exaggerating the real facts.
• Follow fact-checking experts on social media and their websites.
• Beware radical content. The real world is not a movie where you have the bad guy and the good guy. If you see something that incites violence against someone, don’t act violently in response. We are humans that we can solve our problems argues.

expected changes

As the discussion continues, some countries have started to come up with regulatory laws for social media platforms. The idea is contrary to hate speech, crimes in general and harassment, in order to build rules for services to moderate this type of content. Last December, for example, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, had to speak with US senators and heard from them: “Self-policing depends on trust, and trust if you have one gone.” Europe is also discussing the mystical issue.

At the same time, the scenario is beginning to change. Pinterest, for example, updated its community guidelines and algorithm to be more inclusive, give visibility to minorities, and combat climate change misinformation. For brands, this means that if they want to have higher visibility, they will also have to think about how they will remain at this minimum in their communications.

Including before last year’s scandal, Facebook was already trying to be more aware of some sensitive content. In 2020, during the pandemic, many anti-vaccine posts were spread on social media platforms to scare people from getting vaccinated, including Musk as the generator of these comments.

Considering the virality of these platforms, this could cause the death of many people and cause the pandemic to continue for a longer time.

In this case, both Twitter and Instagram showed red flags every time someone made a post about COVID or vaccines explaining the importance of protecting themselves.

In the last year, Meta (signed by the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) admitted to removing 9.2 million posts of a harassing nature. It’s enough?

In addition, Twitter and Instagram recently announced that they will switch to chronological feeds to prevent users from turning on only mass-shared content, which tends to bring more fake news, hate speech and not give space to minorities. It is the beginning.

You should see:

If you like this topic, I recommend you watch Don’t Look Up, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2022. In this movie, director Adam McKay takes an interesting look at how we react to social media. In addition, he criticizes the manipulation of all kinds of communication companies.

The Internet is an ocean of information. The discussion about freedom of expression and society will live for a long time in our debates. It is up to us to keep our minds wide open to learn how to use them positively.

For marketers and digital professionals, the thing to consider is this: We are responsible for every piece of content we create and share. Our job is to make the digital environment a place where everyone feels safe to interact with other people and with brands. With good content and less conflict on social networks, companies can have more opportunities to grow.