Is Elon Musk’s Twitter Going Under?

Much has already been said about the debacle that was Elon Musk’s purchasing of Twitter, and the facts of this coverage have been well-established by now. However, much of the coverage you’ll see about Twitter/X is from earlier this year, and a lot can change in 6 months when you’re a $40 billion – sorry, $4 billion now — company.  

We want to cut to the quick a little bit on this subject and answer a deceptively simple question: Is Elon Musk’s Twitter going under? More specifically, should business owners consider Twitter to be a viable platform to advertise their business on?  

Let’s go over the current state of things. 

The Current State of Elon Musk’s Twitter

To say that Twitter is on hard times is a misrepresentative understatement. By Elon’s own math, Twitter (we’re just gonna keep calling it Twitter) has lost up to 90% of its value since Musk’s purchasing of the platform over a year ago. The site has seen a 13% decline in its daily active users, and advertisers like Apple and Disney are leaving in droves due to concerns of brand safety (and Musk’s antisemitic comments). All of these very public gaffs have slowly been degrading the reputation of the site in ways that it would take a miracle to recover from. Twitter isn’t on hard times – a more accurate reading would be that Twitter is on life support, and Musk keeps switching the electricity on and off. 

In the most literal sense, Twitter likely isn’t truly disappearing anytime soon, as the richest man in the world can keep throwing money at it – but the trend in its viability has been steadily downward. 

Should Your Business Advertise on Twitter? 

If the tone of the above section wasn’t an indicator, Twitter’s future is looking bleak at the moment. Due to Musk’s laissez faire approach to moderation on the platform, more hateful and inaccurate content is appearing on the website than ever before. With a sharp increase in low-quality and offensive content comes a lower level of brand safety for advertisers, meaning that there’s a higher chance your company’s ad will appear alongside inappropriate content that could turn away potential customers because of the ad’s association with that content. This could have a totally inverse effect on the outcome of your advertising, where your ads could start losing you customers. 

The silver lining to all of this – and it’s a lining no more than an atom or two thick – is that there’s less competition to advertise on Twitter, so exposure would likely be cheaper. There’s your pro list, basically. 

So where should my company advertise? 

Digital advertising is a solid investment when paired with the right expertise and understanding of your target audience.  

• Facebook ads are a great, inexpensive option for a broad audience reach and brand building, especially for B2C companies. However, lead quality is relatively low. You get what you pay for.  
• LinkedIn ads are ideal for reaching business owners and executives, since you can filter audiences by their job title. These are going to be more expensive than Facebook ads, but the leads are generally better quality than Facebook’s. 
• Google ads are by far the most expensive while also realizing the highest quality of leads.  
• Bing Ads are like a safer alternative to advertising on Twitter these days. There’s nowhere near the competition you’ll see on Google, so these ads tend to be cheaper. Basically every office worker in America has Microsoft Edge automatically installed on their computer, so there’s a built-in audience there if you’re willing to risk the lower traffic overall. 

Advertising in a Post-Twitter Internet 

Twitter might be on its way out, but there are more than enough alternatives that businesses don’t need to be too worried about where they’ll advertise next. If you want to learn more about your digital advertising options, speak with a 1GS agent today to start building a custom multi-step marketing strategy that businesses like yours have seen up to 10x ROI while utilizing.