Musk and Twitter
Musk is a salesman. Somewhere in 2022 he bought Twitter to make it his social network. I am not sure if this was his plan from day 1 - but the publicly bragged about buying twitter so much that he had to buy it. Otherwise that bragging would have put him into serious legal troubles.
Buying was “cheaper” than not buying it. Of course a lot of banks lent him money. And he has to pay back that money. Bad for Musk as Twitter at that time only lost money.
So he embarked on his voyage to make Twitter profitable. Laying off many employees. Making many features only accessible for people that that are paying for Twitter.
This means the API got very hard to use for 3rd parties. Tweetdeck did not work for a long time, then was made a premium-only feature.
And now…
… Less Reach for Non-Blue Checkmark People
Around mid-2023 it looked like my tweets did not get much attention by anyone. I double checked with my friends’ Tweets. Same there. And a pattern emerged. Paying customers still got a lot of reach and audience. But if you don’t have a blue checkmark - no audience. No reach. This was confirmed by Musk “Verified accounts are now prioritized”, and the NYT also wrote about it earlier.
Hmm. Seems I have to pay for Twitter/X now. That’s fine. But something felt off.
Twitter/X is Like Tinder
But this is a concept that was established very very successfully by Tinder. There are way more men than women. And if you want to get attention you have to “boost” your profile. Otherwise nobody would notice you.
On Twitter/X this seems to be the same. If you pay - you get an audience. If you don’t pay you won’t get noticed.
And for many reasons I don’t like that concept. Audience should be about good content and not money.
Many Professionals Still on Twitter/X
When I look through the Twitter/X Users I can still see many really good Tweets by super interesting professionals. So Twitter/X still has value to me. But as someone that actively contributes? Not so much. I feel like I am muted.
Important caveat: I don’t have any hard facts about the issue above. It seems it is the case, and some people are reporting about it. But I might be wrong. Maybe my content is just bad.
On the other hand…
It seems Linkedin is working just fine for me. I am getting many followers. And my posts are also getting many views and interactions. Very different to Twitter/X.
Maybe it is time to cease using Twitter/X as a content producer and switch over to Linkedin…
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- Image on top by Edgar
