Life in a post-Twitter world

With the business suddenly locking staff out of its offices until next week, it sadly does look as though Twitter is on its last legs, despite my earlier reservations about the likelihood of a swift collapse.

But even if it does totter on, I think we’re seeing a pretty fundamental reset. Many individuals, brands and agencies are reassessing its importance and relevance in the comms mix.

So where do we go from here?

1. This shake-up is a reminder of the importance of truly owned channels such as the humble website and/or blog – as well as earned and ATL media. Focusing on the content and the channels that you can control, and where you’re not at the mercy of an algorithm, is still key.

2. Mastodon is the closest rival to Twitter and is seeing many new users (including Stephen Fry) in the face of Twitter’s demise. But it still feels like a poor substitute. I suspect that in the short-term at least we’ll see many brands in the corporate space retreating to LinkedIn, which still offers a good level of organic reach and engagement – unlike Facebook and Instagram.

3. And what of Meta (which owns both FB and Insta)? Will it also benefit from corporate users reassessing its role? Possibly. Both platforms are a no-brainer for larger brands with ad spend and/or large existing communities. Platforms like Instagram make less sense for those without big budgets and an established presence, given its limited organic reach. There’s nothing quite like Twitter for connecting experts and communicators in the public space.

4. Finally, this could be a reason to “pivot to video”. This has been talked about a lot in previous years but is not as easy as it sounds — typically it’s much more resource-intensive than other forms of comms. But many will be looking at how they can make better use of channels like YouTube.

It remains to be seen what will become of Twitter over the coming days and weeks, but one thing’s for sure – we’ll be seeing a lot of focus and spend move away from the platform, and fast.