According to CNN Business, 625 of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers left it in early January. That is a catastrophe, but Twitter can get some of them back. If it can, Twitter will dodge a disaster that could destroy it financially and harm its ability to pay down debt used to take it private.
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Twitter already has started to use traditional practices to regain ad revenue. It has offered desirable advertising deals at low prices. While these may have had limited success so far, some marketers will use the arrangements if they can do so privately. Twitter remains an effective medium.
More importantly, Elon Musk must understand that his behavior has hurt his financial prospects. He can do two things to combat that. The first is to take a much lower profile on Twitter. The other is to bring back technology that helps screen out violent and misleading advertising. Spam remains part of Twitter’s inventory. (Click here for the biggest scandals of 2022.)
And Twitter’s success relies on Musk more than anyone else. His financial stake is so high that the effects of his behavior will change his strategy. No matter his reasons, his behavior has cost him billions of dollars.
A CEO’s behavior can rarely do such significant damage. In most cases, the reason is criminal behavior. That is not Musk’s problem, so his bar is low.
Musk must realize that his Twitter antics have started sales problems at Tesla, where he does not have a solid executive team. He has to decide how much he wants to damage his flagship company.
Twitter’s fortunes will improve because even Musk, as headstrong as he has been, can read a P&L as well as anyone.
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