In case you missed it, Twitter recently experienced chaos after Elon Musk, the platform’s new owner, followed through on his plan to remove all legacy blue tick verification badges. These badges were attached to the handles of hundreds of thousands of celebrities, musicians, journalists, and anyone who might have received them for known or unknown reasons.
Surprisingly, most owners of blue tick verification ignored the removal, and some celebrities and media organizations even threatened to quit the platform. According to Travis Brown’s compiled data, only 19,469 out of the 400,000+ legacy accounts were subscribed to Twitter Blue, and that number only increased to 19,497 after the purge. Additionally, there were indications that only 28 celebrities or popular persons subscribed to Twitter Blue.
As if this wasn’t enough, Jack Dorsey, the former co-founder of Twitter, has launched Bluesky Social, his competitor and alternative to Twitter. Bluesky’s unique selling proposition is a “social internet” that allows users more choices and frees people from platforms.
For marketers and brand custodians, the confusion around the blue ticks, the Elon Musk effect, and the launch of Bluesky are chaotic. However, this “chaos” could be a good thing for brands to learn and gather data. It’s also an opportunity for social networking to evolve beyond a few tech giants.
Overall, these recent developments in the world of social media could be seen as a turning point in the history of social networks. It remains to be seen how things will evolve, but it’s clear that change is coming.