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Twitter X Final
Twitter X Final
Twitter X Final
Background:
In terms of the early history of
Twitter, the platform was launched on
March 21, 2006 in San Francisco, California
under Odeo. Its founders were Jack Dorsey,
Noah Glass, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone.
Their idea was to create a platform to use
text messaging to share statuses. Dorsey
posted the first post “Tweet” on the site. Its
predecessors and competitors in the social
media industry were Six Degrees,
Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook. Twitter
grew slowly for the first year, but saw
dramatic increases in usage after the March
2007 South by Southwest Interactive
conference.
The initial name of the platform was
“twttr” and featured a green site logo. From
there, this evolved to “Twitter” and a blue
background with a white bird logo and the
title for the app icon. In September 2006,
they established twitter.com. In June of
2012, the text of “Twitter” was removed
from the icon, thus signifying that the bird
on its own was enough for recognition.
October 2008 saw the first change in CEO for the company. Dorsey stepped down
and was replaced by another founder, Evan Williams. Two years later, Williams was
replaced by the company’s COO, Dick Costolo. Then, in July 2015, when Costolo
stepped down, Dorsey returned as the interim CEO for Twitter.
Two additional changes to the platform from the early history of Twitter that
impact the current environment of the newly branded X are the April 2010 addition of
promoted Tweets and the November 2015 addition of a political transparency page. These
play a factor now with the Community Notes aspect of X and the financial impact of
businesses on the platform.
Timeline:
Timeline Explained:
January 2022:
● Purchase of Twitter
○ Elon Musk began to purchase Twitter in near-daily installments.
April 2022:
● Musk owns parts of Twitter
○ Musk reached out to Twitter to tell them about his stake in the company and
publicly revealed that he earned 9.2% of Twitter.
May 2022
● Musk offers to buy campaigns
○ Musk offered to buy the company for $54.20 per share and lined up $46.59
in financing.
○ Musk sells approximately $8.58 worth of Tesla shares to help fund this
purchase. Twitter accepts.
June 2022
● Withdraw of Offer
○ Musk withdraws the offer, arguing that Twitter underreported the number of
spam bots, or fake accounts, on the platform.
October 2022
● Twitter resumes
○ Musk’s attorney puts out a notice of resuming the acquisition of Twitter.
○ Musk says the purchase of Twitter is a part of his vision to create “the
everything app” known as X, which would be modeled after WeChat.
● Twitter CEO fired
○ Musk purchases Twitter, takes it off private and immediately cleans house.
○ Among his first initiatives as owner, he fires Twitter’s CEO, CFO, chief
legal officer and chief content officer, and appoints himself CEO.
November 2022
● Twitter’s Employees Fired
○ Almost 4,400 of Twitter's 7,400 employees are laid off.
○ By January 2023, the workforce was further reduced to 2,500.
○ Twitter charges account holders $7.99 a month for the blue checkmark,
phasing out its verification program.
July 2023
● Blue bird is replaced
○ Musk replaces Twitter’s iconic blue bird logo with X, the 24th letter of the
Roman Alphabet.
○ The platform’s handle on the app changes to X, and the eTwitter account
becomes inactive.
August 2023
● Political Advertising
○ X allows political advertising on its platform, but prohibits the promotion
of misleading content that is intended to undermine public confidence in an
election.
September 2023
● One million users
○ Musk, as a live-streaming interview with Israel Prime Minister, plans “a
small monthly payment” for subscribing to X as a way to combat bots on
the platform.
2024
● X is still called Twitter
○ Ever since Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X, he has gotten backlash by
users, and people still refer to the app as Twitter.
Problem Statement & Actions Taken
Statement:
What are the implications of the switch in brand from Twitter to X?
Brand Exploratory
Consumer Mental Map
This mental map has associations of X as an app and company on the right,
Twitter on the bottom left, and social media as a whole on the top left. This gives insight
into the differences between X and Twitter as brands, as well as a comparison to give
insight into competitors with social media in general.
Twitter has a friendlier association in comparison to X. Many users associate the
brand with its logo which is a bright blue bird and is also connected to the name of the
posts on Twitter which are called “Tweets”. This playful connection between the logo and
the name of the posts makes the brand already very appealing to consumers. The app was
used to post very short texts and often start a debate with them.
X on the other hand is seen as very sleek and sophisticated. The new simple and
dark logo gives the brand automatically a new image. There are also some associations
with Elon Musk and his other endeavors and companies, which are key as he owns the
platform. In terms of his other business endeavors, SpaceX and Tesla are probably the
most well-known. Space X, abbreviated from the Space Exploration Technologies
Corporation, was founded in 2002 with the goal of reducing the cost of space
transportation and in hopes of colonizing Mars. Tesla operates as a luxury car brand, with
a focus on innovation like self-driving vehicles. Musk is also associated with
cryptocurrency, as he has allowed for cryptocurrency to be used to make purchases from
Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla also purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in February 2021. This
association with cryptocurrency is particularly relevant to X as a social media platform
because part of Musk’s plan of the “everything app” is to incorporate shopping.
In terms of the social media associations, this helps to give more explanation for
the perceptual map, as well as determining what competitors are doing successfully and
effectively when compared with X. Social media platforms are primarily used in app
format on mobile devices, but their website counterparts are still important. Their content
is also important in that there’s visual and written material that plays a role in their user
experience.
Perceptual Map
Perceptual Map (X) Perceptual Map (after recommendations)
We created two perceptual maps to show where X stands in comparison to other
social media companies. These perceptual maps list text vs. visual content on the
platform on the Y-axis and global user statistics on the X-axis. The apps listed near the
top are highly visual platforms, with more text-heavy content in the lower half of the
map. Apps with high user statistics are on the right side, and those with lower usage are
on the left. The size of the circle correlates with the user statistics in the United States.
According to these maps, the three highest used platforms are YouTube, Facebook,
and Instagram. Youtube is fully video content, while Facebook and Instagram give a wide
variety of content. Both have video and photo capabilities, but Facebook also has the
option for posts to be just written content. Youtube also has text content in video
descriptions, but those cannot be posted on their own. Instagram is similar in this; their
posts can have captions, but posts have visual elements with photos and/or videos.
X’s main competitors are Facebook and Instagram, which both have a strong focus
on both visual and text content. They are owned by Meta, as well as WhatsApp. Meta has
also had a similar rebrand to Twitter/X, as it was founded as the Facebook Company in
2004 and rebranded as Meta in 2021. The company Meta was acquired by the Chan
Zuckerberg Initiative, owned by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. This is
similar to Elon Musk and X, as he operates X under the X Corp.
When looking at X on the first map it can be seen that they have relatively low
global users and offer a little more visual content than text content. Their circle is also
relatively small which indicates that there is also a lower number of US users. With the
recommendations we have, X’s usage should increase due to making the platform more
friendly and less cold. Additionally, with focusing more on the brand as a whole, it will
help to differentiate it more from “formerly Twitter.” This will help the app catch up more
toward TikTok and move slightly towards more text content. Those changes can be seen
in the second perceptual map.
Recommendations
Overall, our main recommendation for Elon Musk in managing X is to regain
confidence in the brand. For example, the “Formerly Twitter” should be removed from
marketing the app in the App Store. This will help X make its own path and differentiate
itself more from Twitter. Additionally, to help users and potential users, the algorithm for
the new “Community Notes” page should be improved. The Community Notes give
insight into misleading and false information on the platform, rather than just removing
the posts. Improving that algorithm will then show users posts with more relevant and
reliable information. Another way that X can be improved is to monitor bots and
subscriptions better. “Bot” accounts have been prevalent on the app and can be
detrimental to the overall experience on the app in spamming accounts and posts. An
addition to the app since Musk took over was subscriptions for verified accounts. This
can also be monitored better going forward.
Another step toward regaining confidence in X is to create a stronger brand
identity. This can be done through aesthetic changes and terminology. The app still feels
very similar in user experience to Twitter, so making some visual changes to the platform
can help create differentiation. With terminology, tweets had become so synonymous
with Twitter in referring to posts on the app previously. Now, people still call them
tweets, especially because X still hasn’t given users anything that’s stuck. They’re just
called “posts.” We think that it would be more creative for them to be called
“X-pressions.” This ties in the name of the app, while also providing a memorable name.
We would also like for X to initiate an “X-Press Yourself” campaign. This
campaign would consist of events across the world, in places that would reach target
markets, like college campuses. It would also include a brand ambassador program for
social media influencers to share the brand. Even though Elon Musk hasn’t used much
marketing for his other brands, we think
that this powerful tool could really help
to improve the image and awareness of
the app. Overall, this campaign would
help make the brand seem more
approachable and casual. After these are
implemented and the company has more
confidence in X and a stronger brand identity, the overarching goal to make X into an
“everything app” can be fully initiated.