Twitter is about to become a very interesting marketing case study. An example of what happens when there is a fundamental misunderstanding of who the customer is and what the value promise to that customer is.
Scott Galloway said something that inspired this article. He used an airline as a case for different customers paying different prices. So let’s tease that out…
If Twitter was an Emirates A380, there are 4 classes. 14 First Class seats, 76 Business Class seats, Premium Economy has 56 seats, Economy 338 seats. As with all analogies, this will break down at some point, but bear with me…
Elon Musk, who was sitting in first class, now thinks he can be the pilot. He’s never sat in economy and has no idea what the flight is like for someone in 88C.
Let’s call Business Class the ‘Blue Tick’ passengers. This is where the value sweet spot is. People who are willing to pay for something a little extra, either to make them feel special or because there is a particular utility that is recognised as valuable. A business person flying overnight might save a night in a hotel and walk fresh into a presentation. On Twitter, an author or brand may have an engaged community to which revenue can be attributed. Business class is also aspirational.
Premium economy is Twitter users who are verified and have the ‘blue tick’ but if it wasn’t there it wouldn’t matter. On the plane, you get a bit of extra legroom, which is a nice to have, but if you didn’t have the choice you’d fall back to economy rather than pay to upgrade to business. In fact, these are the people who will look for another airline to provide better value.
Then there is economy. Give these people enough in-flight entertainment and they won’t notice how bad the service really is. But without these passengers there would be no first class or business class. Most of the 100+ Million people who follow Barack Obama or Justin Bieber or Elon Musk are sitting in economy.
Well what about the bots, where do they fit in? Have you ever been on a flight with a crying baby or a screaming kid? This can happen in any cabin, completely ruining the experience for everybody.
So. Will I pay for Twitter?
No. It’s not worth it.
In July 2008, I joined Twitter. I can’t remember why, though it may have had something to do with being an early adopter of social networks like Bolt.com and Moblog.
At the time of writing, I have 1916 followers. That’s about 127 followers per year, but that’s not really the story. In fact, about half of those were acquired in the first two years, and the total number has not changed for nearly a decade.
What has changed is the engagement level. My tweets used to get maybe 20 likes and 5 replies. Now, there is nothing. I think that is because most of the passengers who were flying with me in economy either found another airline or just stopped flying altogether.
My stats for October… 56 tweets. 5,053 impressions (unclear if this included bot traffic), 840 profile visits (could have been me, I regularly look at my own profile to see what I posted last so I don’t repeat things.) 83 mentions (this is weird. If I look at my feed there are only 4 mentions in October), 0 new followers
In the same month, Google Analytics reports the following acquisition data. 73 users from Linkedin, 9 from Instagram, 3 from Facebook and 2 from Twitter. I don’t use promoted posts or advertising on any of these channels. This is even worse when you consider users versus my relative following on each of these platforms Linkedin (4.5%), Instagram (1.3%), Facebook (1.5%), Twitter (0.1%)
So will I pay to fly Twitter Airways? Not from the point of view of sitting in 88C. The quality of the in-flight entertainment is getting worse, there are to many crying babies and screaming kids and the pilot is some guy from first class who looks like he’s going to fly us into a mountain.
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