“We are excited to announce insulin is now free!” tweeted US pharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly at the end of last week. Given the drug has become a poster child for big pharma price gouging, this news would’ve garnered shock and delight from commentators. A return to the noble intentions of insulin’s inventors – who sold the patent for $1 in 1923 to save lives.
Would’ve, if it was true. The tweet came from one of the many parody accounts that have sprung up in recent days. And Eli Lilly’s stock dropped 4.37% for the trouble.
This is but one example of the backlash to Elon Musk’s snap policy decisions on Twitter. Namely, the new rule that all parody accounts must include the word “parody” in their name, seemingly to combat parodies of his own profile.
What Elon Musk has willingly overlooked here is the importance of a solid change communications strategy; a whole discipline devoted to the effective communication of business change.
In this example, Twitter users responded by competing to achieve the most outrageous brand parody statement. From Coca Cola announcing they’d “put the cocaine back in” in exchange for 1000 retweets, to Roblox “adding sex” to the game.
Undeniably the approach has generated engagement, but the policy remains utterly unenforced. And users, investors and advertisers are left questioning the direction of the platform going forwards.
So let’s spotlight a few of Musk’s communications techniques so far, and explore – as if you need telling – just why they are so ill-conceived.
The one man (or woman) show
It’s true, personality often drives online engagement with businesses. This is why outspoken CEOs get so much media coverage and why companies seeking clicks on Linkedin are often told to use their business leads as content engines.
The problem comes when one person is both making the decisions, and communicating them. With no one to challenge him or suggest ideas, Musk is currently more one-man show than verified company mouth-piece.
And there are other considerations at play here. Personality can have conversely negative business impacts when it comes to investor, partner or employee perceptions. Musk’s strategy of using his personal Twitter as the primary channel of communication for garbled and ever-changing company policy is not winning him many friends.
Publicly haggling with celebrities like Steven King over new blue tick costs, and clipping the digital wings of comedians like Kathy Bates for impersonating him doesn’t do much to convey professionalism either. And tweeting “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue…even though…we did everything we could” doesn’t give users, or investors the sense that this guy has everything under control.
That’s without delving into the damage caused by sharing an alt-right conspiracy news story or retweeting a neo-nazi in a concious effort to generate maximum outrage – which can be conveniently tracked and measured in the form of comments and clicks. But, to what end?
Some would argue Musk’s conduct so far has evidenced ego bordering on narcissism. Character judgements aside, his actions provide a neat case study for the importance of bringing a team of smart people along with you to navigate change communications.
Understanding a platform before communicating around it
It sounds simple, right? A strict rule of change communication is to have a bullet-proof understanding of what’s changing, who might be impacted and what will be done to make the transition as smooth as possible, before you open your mouth (or your emails) to communicate it.
Yet the richest man in the world buying one of the world’s biggest tech platforms has demonstrated an astounding lack of the above.The most obvious example of this being advertising.
Advertisers have been spooked by Twitter’s turmoil. In one statement, Twitter claimed its proposed blue tick service – which has since been temporarily recalled – would provide “half the ads and better ones”. This approach suggests that with all Twitter’s targeting capabilities, the platform would opt to withhold its best targeting for paying users whilst others are left with the scraps.
When the value exchange between advertisers and platforms largely relies on adverts being targeted at users who will be interested in their product, this business model simply doesn’t make sense. Will Dunn, writing for the New Statesman referred to it as “laughable to suggest that a social network might be withholding its best ads for subscribers”.
Rash decisions and a lack of sensitivity
So since changing hands, Twitter has successfully panicked investors and alienated advertisers. Who’s next? Employees.
“Twitter to lay off 25% of staff” was the headline plastered across most of mainstream media earlier this month. This unapologetic cull apparently included 80% of contractors who were let go with no formal notice, and an unspecified number who were fired by email, and asked to come back the following week as a result of a miscalculation.
On the day redundancies were made, staff were apparently asked to work from home and told to await an email which would reveal if they were or weren’t fired. Some discovered the bad news early when they found they could not log onto their work accounts that morning.
Mass redundancy is never an easy message to communicate, but there are ways to do it sensitively. Early communication, transparency and a human touch are essential, as is making advice and support available to help former employees with next steps. Needless to say, stripping users of access to slack and email unannounced, does not meet the criteria.
Keep it consistent
Ironic as it might sound, consistency is also key when communicating change. Business processes, policy or models might be shifting, but the message itself must hold steady.
The goal is to reassure. Change can surprise external and internal audiences alike, so decision-makers have an important role to play in communicating that everything is happening in line with a plan – and that plan has been thought through.
Musk’s firing and re-hiring sums up the impact of getting this wrong, but there’s a wider issue with consistency evidenced in Musk’s approach, too.
“Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information in the world” is not for example, compatible with “widespread verification will democratise journalism and empower the voice of the people”.Yet both statements went out in tweet-form from Elon Musk’s account. Either you are building a source of unadulterated truth or you’re building a platform where all people can express whatever they choose – the aims are mutually exclusive.
Too big to fail?
Despite the revolving wheel of chaotic communications coming out of Twitter over the past two weeks, the question remains; is the platform too big to fail?
Clearly the transition of power could’ve been handled better in a plethora of ways, but first and foremost, planning should always come before communication. In other words, Twitter needs to decide what kind of platform it wants to be, before telling the world.
Still, there’s no denying Twitter is a rich ecosystem. The platform has evolved over the last fifteen years into a network that brings together normal people, celebrities, journalists, academics, influencers, trolls and everyone in between – from all over the world.
Elon Musk will likely enjoy at least nine lives as he figures out not only his communication strategy, but his entire business model. And those of us who use Twitter regularly can only hope he doesn’t use all nine of them.
What’s certain is that it’s going to take more than a string of unsettling tweets from its new owner to send Twitter’s almost 400 million users running to Mastodon. “What is Mastodon?” you ask. I don’t know either.
