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Musk’s Twitter Plans Remain Vague After First Q and A with Company Staff

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Musk Discusses His Views on Content Moderation as Twitter Deal Inches Closer to Completion

Okay, look, I have no doubt that Elon Musk is a genius on some level, a visionary who has been able to tap into key investment and development opportunities, and make things happen where others could not.

I’m not debating this – but his views on social media, and how social platforms work, increasingly seem outdated, misguided, and outright wrong in many respects.

Today, Musk held his first meeting with Twitter staff since launching a hostile takeover offer for the platform back in April.

And as you can imagine, staff had many questions – and Musk’s answers didn’t exactly provide much assurance of future direction for the company.

First off, on censorship, which has been a key element of Musk’s Twitter takeover push. Musk has long criticized Twitter’s restrictions on certain speech, and has advocated for more open communication, within the boundaries of local laws, as opposed to taking on more officiating on such at a platform level.

In today’s meeting, Musk reiterated this stance, saying that people should be allowed to ‘say pretty outrageous things’ – though Musk also says that such comments ‘shouldn’t be amplified’ by Twitter itself.

What exactly that means is unclear – though interestingly, Musk has often criticized Twitter’s alleged ‘shadow bans’ which restrict the reach of some tweets. It seems like he’s kind of now advocating for this – but how exactly he would envision such process, in a functional sense, is unclear.

Musk also discussed his plan to combat bots, which has been another key pillar of his Twitter takeover push.

Last month, Musk said that his Twitter takeover had been effectively put ‘on hold’ due to him essentially not believing Twitter’s data that only 5% of its active users were fake/bots. Twitter has since provided Musk with its ‘full firehose’ of tweets to make an independent assessment.

So how does Musk plan to tackle bots?

His solution would be that users need to pay a certain amount to get their account verified, which would make it too expensive to run massive bot networks.

“It needs to be much more expensive to have a troll army.”

That makes some sense, but it could also be more challenging in practice, while additionally limiting the app’s growth prospects, if every user has to pay to sign-up. Musk has previously also noted that Twitter ‘will always be free for casual users’, but how these two stances would align is another hazy element.

Which leads into Musk’s growth plans for the app. As per Musk’s leaked strategy deck, which had been shared with potential investors Musk plans to increase Twitter’s user base from the 229 million daily actives it has right now, to 600 million by 2025, then to 931 million by 2028.

In fact, Musk has told Twitter staff that his plans are even bigger than this, with a target of a billion users in the app.

Though again, the detail is pretty light on here, with Musk only providing a vague reference to Chinese messaging apps as a template of sorts for Twitter growth.

Wow, what a stroke of genius this is. This approach totally hasn’t been attempted by almost every other messaging app, in every other region.

Indeed, Meta has been working on this template for years, first trying to get Western users more hooked on Messenger, via the addition of a range of expanded functions and tools, then pushing to do the same with WhatsApp in India and other Asian markets.

It’s never worked. For whatever reason, Chinese users have adopted messaging apps in a much bigger way than those in other markets, and while Meta is still hopeful that it can make WhatsApp the key connective tool on India and Indonesia specifically, the chances of US users increasing their reliance on a messaging platform – and definitely on Twitter – are not very high.

But Elon seems to believe that he’s the first to notice this, and that this is some hidden gem that no one has stumbled upon as yet, which again underlines the concern that he’s a little naïve in his approach to managing, and maximizing, the platform.

That’s been the same in his statements about fake accounts and free speech, Elon has a personal stance on each of these elements, but it’s not like the questions that he’s raising haven’t been raised and assessed by every other social app at some stage.

For example:

It still amazes me that a person looking to buy a social media platform doesn’t understand the impact that algorithmic sorting has on engagement, a key measure of success. Yes, some people get annoyed by an algorithm showing them what it thinks they like, but the fact is that all platforms that have implemented algorithmic systems have seen engagement increase as a result, including Twitter itself.

Which leads into the next point raised by Musk:

Right, so algorithms are bad, but people can’t be shown ‘boring content’ – and TikTok, which has seen massive success on the back of its highly attuned personalization algorithm, which fuels its ‘For You’ feed, is a great example of what to aim for.

I look forward to seeing how Musk and Co. solve for this.  

Other staff questions related to diversity in the workforce, allowing people to continue working from home (something Musk is against) and, of course, potential lay-offs.

Musk has previously stated that he plans to cut Twitter’s staff base by around 1,000 roles – a seventh of Twitter’s overall workforce – over the next two years.  

Musk didn’t offer any additional assurance on this front:

“Right now costs exceed revenue. That’s not a great situation.”

Musk also – probably jokingly – suggested that Twitter could add an ‘irony’ label to add context to tweets.

Which is pretty stupid – but again, it seemed like a joke. Probably.

Again, overall, Musk’s responses show a lack of awareness in many respects, and a lack of a clear plan as to how Musk expects to make Twitter a success, outside of just getting people to tweet more often.

Functionally, that’s not something you can just do, and getting more people to tweet has been the full focus of the app’s staff for the entire 16 years of its existence.

Still, Musk seems confident that he has the answers. Like $44 billion confident.

How that translates into action, we’ll have to wait and see.



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New Guide Highlights Key Considerations for Effective TikTok Ads

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New Guide Highlights Key Considerations for Effective TikTok Ads

Looking to make TikTok a bigger focus of your marketing effort in 2024?

This will help. TikTok recently partnered with creator intelligence platform CreatorIQ to conduct an analysis of the key factors that make for a resonant TikTok promotion, culminating in a 26-page report which covers a range of key notes and tips for your planning.

You can download CreatorIQ’s full TikTok ads guide here, but in this post, we’ll look at some of the key notes.

The report is broken up into five key pillars of TikTok ads creation, which echo much of the best advice that’s been shared for the platform over time.

CreatorIQ’s five key TikTok marketing notes are:

  • Grab attention from the start
  • Foster a personal connection
  • Show your product in action
  • Use high-impact creative elements
  • Close with a clear call to action

For each of these elements, the guide digs deeper into how to enact them, and the critical considerations of each, including stats on effectiveness:

Tips on TikTok-specific trends and tools:

CreatorIQ TikTok Ads Report

As well as case study examples to underline each point:

CreatorIQ TikTok Ads Report

It’s a handy overview, with a range of valuable notes, though the main finding, above all of the creative pointers and advice, is that established creators perform better for TikTok promotions.

As per CreatorIQ:

The report found that creators overwhelmingly make the best-performing TikTok ads, with recommendations carrying more weight than traditional brand advertisements and celebrity spokespeople. In fact, after watching a creator-driven Spark Ad, 57% of TikTok community members say the creator is trustworthy, 56% say they can trust the brand because the creator shared it, and 71% say creator authenticity led them to buy a product.

So while there are a heap of practical notes and pointers for increasing the resonance of your in-app promotions – like this:

CreatorIQ TikTok Ads Report

The key point of emphasis is that creators make better TikToks, and thus, better ads, so partnering with relevant influencers in your niche is still likely a better way to go.

Some good considerations, and some valuable, data-backed tips, which could help to get your TikTok promotion plan on the right track in the new year.

You can download CreatorIQ’s full TikTok marketing report here.

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Adobe Highlights Rising Visual Trends in 2024 Creative Trends Report

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Adobe Highlights Rising Visual Trends in 2024 Creative Trends Report

Looking for creative inspiration for your 2024 strategic planning?

This will help. Today, Adobe has published its annual Creative Trends Report, which incorporates insights from Adobe’s 30 million+ Creative Cloud users, in order to determine rising visual styles of interest, which look set to resonate with audiences in the new year.

Based on its research, the Adobe team has established four creative trends that are worthy of note:

  • Calming Rhythms – Fluid and flowing forms that soothe the senses and support emotional balance
  • Wonder and Joy – Visuals that inspire a sense of awe, joy, and enchantment
  • Dynamic Dimensions – Where all dimensions and types of content seamlessly merge
  • The New Nostalgia – Contemporary interpretations of vintage styles

Adobe’s 22-page report, which you can download here (with email sign-up), provides more insight into each of these trends, along with various examples, and data that explains why they’re set to gain more momentum.

There are handy notes and insights for each, which help to illustrate how to use them in your process.

Adobe 2024 Creative Trends Report

Interestingly, a lot of the images used by Adobe in the report look like they’ve been created by generative AI. I don’t know that they have, but it is worth noting the composition in this regard, as another potential means to tap into these trends.

Adobe 2024 Creative Trends Report

The report provides some interesting perspective on rising visual trends, which could help in your planning. Maybe one of these resonates especially well with your branding, or aligns with what your target audience has been sharing.

Either way, some additional, data-backed considerations, which could be helpful in your process.

You can download Adobe’s “2024 Creative Trends Report” here.

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Elon Musk’s X and Amazon discuss potential collaboration

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Elon Musk’s X and Amazon discuss potential collaboration

In a significant development in the social media industry, Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is reportedly engaging in preliminary discussions …

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