In the few three weeks, global financial news and headlines have been awash with the much-touted acquisition of Twitter by the world’s richest man and co-founder/CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk. Undoubtedly, the matter is of great interest to Twitter’s shareholders, private equity firms and global regulators of information and communications technology, however, the significance of the sale of Twitter is going to upend digital marketing as we know it.
On the surface of headlines, Musk has made known his personal concerns, interests and motivations for buying Twitter and taking it private, he has also laid out some of the top and bottom line strategic changes he will implement when takes the full and complete country of the world’s most popular platform for opinions and free speech.
One of the most significant changes he is planning to implement is the commercial and revenue strategy which could tweak Twitter’s advertising and monetization model. One of his proposed approaches is that corporations (brands) and government institutions will pay for tweets or fixed subscriptions. This, therefore, means that they could have the option of disabling advertising on their feeds and timelines. While Musk has insisted that Twitter will be free for casual users, this could also give them the option to opt-out of ads for a monthly fee.
Despite the fact that Twitter is one of the largest digital advertising platforms, Musk’s approach could trigger a ripple effect in the industry. Recently, YouTube launched its premium version without ads and promotions. While this has not received massive adoption, it is interesting to see how this approach will change the usage of Twitter and the effectiveness of brand engagements.
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