What is going on with Elon Musk and Twitter? Slice’s strategy team weighs in

“I believe Twitter ads will get worse before they get better, specifically for business services. As we’re considering Twitter, I want to note that Elon’s other companies such as Telsa, do not put emphasis or priority at all, on business operations, marketing, or advertising services. This has become evident at Twitter as a lot of the people who were let go and laid off, were in business services and marketing. There may be functions that will break, there will probably be issues related to deliverability, and you’ll probably start seeing issues as it relates to analytics and getting more data. And so if you’re spending a lot of money advertising on Twitter, you may want to pause it, look really closely at it, and maybe reconsider how much money you’re spending on Twitter.”

Cass Bailey, CEO

“We can’t say whether or not you should pause your Twitter ads, as each of our clients has different needs and political views. However, we have brought up the conversation with most of our clients. Where we have landed is it’s probably a safe bet to pause your ads and continue organic posting. We all plan to reevaluate Twitter within the next six months and make more data-driven decisions then. However, I will say, even Twitter has felt the sting of businesses pausing their advertising (Elon accused Apple of pausing ad spend). So, it might be beneficial to start a dialogue with other partners in your industry to see what decisions they are making”

Marissa Bruette, Content Strategist

“Elon Musk is known as an innovator and innovator, so we think we’re going to start to see a lot of product innovation. Of the employees he’s retained and is prioritizing at Twitter, they are the technical people, the engineers. I think we’re gonna see a lot of new and different products come out of Twitter that are going to be tied to revenue opportunities. Elon has already tested a number of options from allowing Twitter Blue subscribers to have the infamous ‘blue checkmarks’ (which caused chaos as people took advantage of the service) to giving an ‘Official’ badge to some high-profile accounts.”

Cass Bailey, CEO

“I’m a little more skeptical of the innovation we’ll see. The pay-to-play verification version is murky territory for me, and I am not exactly a fan of it. As of now, there are no accounts that will be grandfathered in. So, businesses or high-follower accounts that have put time and strategy into growing their platform will have to pay for it. To me, it makes the blue check mark lose its value. Since the initial outrage of the “unchecked” verification program, Elon and the Twitter team are looking into a new system to help with security issues and offer color-coded checkmarks based on the account type (individual, business, government). But, we’ll see how well the team puts a checks and balances system in place.”

Marissa Bruette, Content Strategist

“If you’re battling whether or not to stay on Twitter, now is as good a time as any to investigate other platforms for your brand. If folks are leaving Twitter because they don’t agree with the new direction, where will they be spending their time? Even if you don’t plan on putting a full social media strategy together for TikTok, Snapchat, (dare I say Mastodon), it’s a good practice to reserve your organization’s handle on those platforms now. It’s always better to own your branded handles from the start, instead of wrangling them back from an impersonator who claimed the username before you.”

Dana Schmidt, Chief Strategy Officer

“Elon has sparked controversy since he announced the idea of buying Twitter. Since taking over, there have been conversations around his ethics and intentions for the platform. One is that he announced he would reactivate accounts that had once been suspended or banned from the platform. Under the veil of “free speech,” I fear that Twitter may not be as safe of space as it once was under new leadership who has not announced a plan to keep things like hate speech or the intentional widespread of misinformation off the platform. We saw how the moderation of the paid verification failed.”

Marissa Bruette, Content Strategist