Understanding risk is standard procedure for SO-SURE, and the implications of having the right cover in place ensures that any inconvenience is minimal.
Advertising on social media represents one of the most competitively priced and widest-reaching avenues to drive business, but only when it is working.
Following the latest challenges that Twitter has faced, our risk experts have analysed the financial and reputational damage caused and if the platform still represents a prudent investment of marketing budgets.
Once upon a time, a Twitter outage would have been earth-shattering news that shook Silicon Valley and the world to its core. Today though, the frequency of such an occurrence is more of a light frustration given the frequency of disruptions.
The latest addition to the Twitter outage calendar happened on Tuesday, 6 March 2023, lasting just over an hour.
The time frame in isolation seems relatively insignificant, but translating this into monetary value equates to $9.3k USD per minute in advertising revenue, that’s £7,724 based on the current exchange rate — a total of $558,000 (£463,474).
When Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $41.09 billion in October 2022, headlines were already being generated with drastic changes to the workplace, cutting 75% of staff with some high-profile redundancies. Making friends and influencing people wasn’t exactly the order of the day.
The overall approach seems introspective for a visionary of Musk’s calibre, given that Twitter is home to 368 million daily users worldwide. Their happiness and satisfaction sit comfortably in second place behind the internal processes disrupting Twitter with the frequency of a poorly run IT department whose only answer is, have you tried turning it off and on again?
The media, understandably, discuss profit and loss and the economic impact. Still, businesses spend years building a brand and a positive reputation, and Twitter is disintegrating. As a PR exercise, it’s fatally flawed; the luxury of having a USP in the marketplace no longer applies. People can vote with their virtual feet by taking their opinions and trolling to another platform.
The habitual usage of social media on mobile phones is embedded in our culture. According to research by Global Webindex, 59% of the world’s population uses social media, and the average daily usage is 2 hours and 31 minutes (January 2023).
The point here is that Twitter addiction is one that users may not consciously turn off. Still, if the platform is not providing the consistency expected in the digital age, users will turn off.
The average attention span is rumoured to be just over 8 seconds, but in reality will depend on variables such as your age, generational attitudes and your approach to working and digesting content.
Are you still here?
Twitter isn’t going anywhere soon, but its perceived value might be. Elon Musk has seen some significant value given the level of his investment, so it’s probably a good idea to follow @elonmusk and stay up to speed with the latest news and controversy.
Hold on a minute… Twitter’s down.