Should your brand still be on Twitter?

In recent months, it’s become clear that Elon Musk has little understanding how social media platforms are monetized and less about the role that brands play in revenue. Even the sudden name change to X without a heads up to customers left brands on the platform scrambling to change a vast array of websites, signage, and collateral. Here are our answers to four questions you might be asking yourself right now:

Should I keep running ads?

Simple answer: No. If you’re concerned about brand safety (and any smart marketer is), there’s no guarantee that your ad won’t run alongside hateful, racist, sexist, or generally abusive content. Beyond that, staff reductions at the company formerly known as Twitter have gutted the ad servicing department. Can we rely on them to deliver accurate reach and frequency numbers or even return messages if something goes wrong?

Should I keep posting?

Is your audience still there? Are they the kind of people who are going to be okay with being pushed alt right content and having no way to block trolls? If you feel like you’ve still got followers who are important to your brand, make sure you have strong moderation in place before you post. Even the most innocent content can attract comments that might be damaging to your brand if not addressed.

Should I delete my brand account?

More than likely, people are not going to fault your brand for simply having a presence on X. And there’s always the possibility the company will get sold to sane management who could potentially turn it around and make it valuable to marketers again. But that’s looking less and less likely as the weeks go by. However, if your brand has put out social content standing up for diversity on other platforms, maintaining a presence on X could make those messages feel like virtue signaling.

How much worse could it get?

Unfortunately, we haven’t hit the bottom yet. We’re getting ready to face an election with the Republican candidate up on criminal charges. X will be THE place for unfiltered alt right rage. There’s also Musk’s vision of X being an “everything app” and adding a payment service. A number of FinTech experts are concerned that the company does not have the resources to effectively manage this and prevent it from turning into a pipeline for money laundering.

Ask yourself if you still have an audience there worth the potential hits to your brand image.