steve0580
Mike Masnick ✅Interesting explanation from a decently large Twitter advertiser on why they've paused their ad budget on Twitter after keeping it running for the past couple of weeks. https://www.teamblind.com/post/i-told-my-team-to-pause-our-750kmonth-twitter-ads-budget-last-week-4dnbo1Ft
Matilda@mmasnick Wow. Just wow.
Benjamin Pollack@mmasnick Yeeesh. I can't honestly say I'm surprised, but the complete gutting of the sales team is gonna make recovery *really* hard.
Ashton@Ashton In the first and last time I'm ever going to say this structure of a sentence:
I thought Musk was dumb before it was cool. This does not strain your theory. 99% of devs I meet think sales is a problem to be dealt with, not a team player. The nuance of "sales is losing deals on this" v. "sales demands you implement this" gets lost in most situations.
tl;dr "Musk is dumb" still answers Occam's razor with no issues.
@mmasnick
In the comments: "Forgot another one: our analytics team is finding discrepancies between campaign data from the Twitter Ads API and the UI. Can’t figure out which is correct anymore since we don’t have a team."
Anyone would pull their spend. Not even certain what they are getting for their $$!
In the comments: "Forgot another one: our analytics team is finding discrepancies between campaign data from the Twitter Ads API and the UI. Can’t figure out which is correct anymore since we don’t have a team."
Anyone would pull their spend. Not even certain what they are getting for their $$!
Blake C. Stacey@mmasnick "Our organic social and CS teams got dozens of screenshots of our ads next to awful content. Replies to our posts with hardcore antisemitism and adult spam remained up for days even when flagged."
my surprised face: 😐
Darren
Jeff Jarvis@mmasnick And yet, Elon is firing yet more sales people. Without sales people, no sales. Does he care?
Matt Blaze@jeffjarvis @mmasnick That's genuinely baffling, and makes me wonder what his game here is, if not simply burning it all down.
PeoriaBummer@mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick The only explanation that seems to fit the data:
Musk:Twitter::Thiel:Gawker
Musk:Twitter::Thiel:Gawker
Martin Oetting@PeoriaBummer @mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick But didn‘t Musk thrive (!) on Twitter? I feel like he built much of his "Richest Man Alive Tony Stark" identity there? Why burn down the main host of your public persona?
@oetting @mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick Based on his behavior, he seems to hate the people that work there and the popular users. I don’t know why. It’s hard to psychoanalyze someone who speaks in a mixture of contradictory hype and adolescent memes.
Adrian Coakley
ML2@mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick
It would not surprise me if Musk thinks the blue checkmark can *replace* advertisers.
It would not surprise me if Musk thinks the blue checkmark can *replace* advertisers.
Dr. Dan Killam@mathlover
I'm sure many have warned him that ads are most lucrative for the top users, and so a reduced-ad subscription for them will actually reduce revenue. He also said strange stuff like that Blue would help people have more relevant ads! Can't be great as advertiser to hear that. He seems to be a very poor listener, or dug in and refusing to lose face about it, or actually mentally unwell and unable to make rational decisions
@mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick
I'm sure many have warned him that ads are most lucrative for the top users, and so a reduced-ad subscription for them will actually reduce revenue. He also said strange stuff like that Blue would help people have more relevant ads! Can't be great as advertiser to hear that. He seems to be a very poor listener, or dug in and refusing to lose face about it, or actually mentally unwell and unable to make rational decisions
@mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick
Dylan T@mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick He seems to think Twitter's problems are primarily technical. I assume he figures that if he solves the technical problems, success will follow. For now, usage is apparently up and the site hasn't fallen over, so he has no evidence to contradict this approach
@mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick btw I'm not saying that's a *smart* approach, it's just my best shot at interpreting what he's doing
Natanael ⚠️@mattblaze @jeffjarvis @mmasnick the only plausible alternative is hybris + sunk cost fallacy. He thinks he can rebuild everything and convince people to come back, that the sudden flood of problems aren't his own fault.
David LaFontaine@jeffjarvis @mmasnick the thread earlier today calling out
1) cratering performance
2) no brand safety
3) broken ad-buying tools
4) old campaigns coming back like zombies & running again
… and the suspension of $750K/mo in ad buys is a SCREAMING SIREN for anyone actually hoping to recoup that $44BN
1) cratering performance
2) no brand safety
3) broken ad-buying tools
4) old campaigns coming back like zombies & running again
… and the suspension of $750K/mo in ad buys is a SCREAMING SIREN for anyone actually hoping to recoup that $44BN
Anna B.@jeffjarvis @mmasnick
I really think he's trying to kill off the platform. It's the only explanation that makes sense at this point.
I really think he's trying to kill off the platform. It's the only explanation that makes sense at this point.
Barry Mac@jeffjarvis @mmasnick Bankruptcy? Seems plausible ’out’ for the maniac
Pratik Patel@jeffjarvis @mmasnick Considering he's aiming for fake ads market, then why should he care?
Meta Meta Mike"Interesting explanation from a decently large Twitter advertiser on why they've paused their ad budget on Twitter after keeping it running for the past couple of weeks. https://www.teamblind.com/post/i-told-my-team-to-pause-our-750kmonth-twitter-ads-budget-last-week-4dnbo1Ft 672000724”
—@mmasnick
https://mastodon.social/@mmasnick/109383192
#Twitter #TwitterFail #TwitterMigration
—@mmasnick
https://mastodon.social/@mmasnick/109383192
#Twitter #TwitterFail #TwitterMigration
p4yback@mmasnick THIS explains why in the last few days I don’t see a single ad anymore.
That along with broken links, comments that won’t load. It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck in real time.
Matthew Rodier@p4yback @mmasnick I see ads but the quality of the has decreased to the point they are reminiscent of the pop ups you see next to articles. “Find out what celebrities are really like at restaurants” is a good example. They’ll always have ads but the clickbait indicates major advertisers, large brands, are decreasing their presence. Not good for the site bc Twitter was a small ad buy to begin with when compared to a Facebook or google.
Antone Johnson@mmasnick Of all the notable observations in that post, this stood out: “Ads UI is very buggy and login with SSO and 2FA broken…Campaign changes don't save.”
This is the kind of failure 99% of users will never see; you have to be an advertiser who accesses the ad console to fully appreciate how certain critical pieces of the customer (advertiser) UX are crumbling w/o adequate engineering support.
David@mmasnick Other than the engagement part, he didn’t say anything new that others haven’t guessed. Brand safety problems, teams disappearing, and buggy software were all predicted by many people already. The article was a confirmation of what most of us suspected.
Bathsheba BlueThe bottom line is Twitter is bad for advertisers’ bottom line — and that is the one unforgivable sin.
Dannyboyguyman
TonyRenner@mmasnick Because they want MAGA dollars?
Tommy Ben Bergman
Steve@mmasnick They were saying months ago that Peter Thiel was pushing Musk to buy Twitter. The only reason I can see him doing that was if he wanted Twitter destroyed.
Yes, Elon's trying to turn it into a conservative haven, but he has zero self-awareness, and is getting high off his own supply as he steers it into a ditch. Thiel knew he'd fail and he's fine with it, just as long as the site goes up in flames.
@ThatSteveGuy while the two worked together and still swim in the same circles, they've both made it clear they dislike the other and think they don't deserve the praise they get. So I'm not sure I buy that.
@mmasnick I should've been more clear, it wasn't just Thiel by himself pushing him. From what I remember it was a group of billionaire douches including Jack Dorsey and David Sacks. But the mere mention of Thiel automatically sets off red flags for me, especially concerning the demise of online platforms that have been beneficial to leftists.
P Marsden@mmasnick I’ve said many times that the only way to make any sense of all this is through the lenses of… a) Twitter failure = tax write off and/or b) Twitter failure = happy Saudis. If he wanted to run a successful business he wouldn’t do anything that he’s done the past few weeks.
@Ohiohawkeye that's not how tax writeoffs work. And I don't see how it helps the Saudis. So I don't buy that.
Samboy@mmasnick Twitter is just a final link in a long line of big companies monopolizing Internet discourse, including MySpace, Facebook, and recently Reddit (Reddit used to have an open source version of their server).
Hopefully, with Twitter users flocking to Mastodon nodes, we will come back full circle to where we were 20 years ago, when Internet communities were not controlled by big monolithic corporations.
BoudMost people in this thread seem to have continued using the euphemism "advertising" instead of the word "propaganda" [1]. #EdwardBernays, the "father of public relations" [2], would be proud of his success!
de-euphemised: "Interesting explanation from a decently large Twitter propagandist on why they've paused their propaganda budget on Twitter after keeping it running for the past couple of weeks."
You're welcome to correct any errors in [1], based on [[WP:RS]].
You've also posed a particularly interesting challenge:
What criteria must a paid advertisement by client X posted on an online social network satisfy in order to *not* bias the reader/viewer to be more likely to purchase X's product (versus a thorough, neutral, objective assessment comparing the rival products)?
In other words: what criteria define an advertisement that is *not* propaganda [1]?
Keeping in mind the #ClimateEmergency , a non-propaganda advertisement would also have to *not* encourage the reader/viewer to buy more products than are reasonably justified during this emergency, it seems to me.
Tinu - Empress of Twerk@mmasnick The comments. Just two turned me back to throwing my hands up at humanity.
Webs Harte@mmasnick appreciate all of your posts. not clear yet how mastodon works in terms of likes. just putting it out there. that link above is very important as they won't be the only client with the same support story plus user goodwill does have perception value
Ruth Callaghan@mmasnick really interesting post for #advertising sector and #communications - I’m telling all clients to get off now but some community and local government groups are understandably afraid of burning #PoliticalCapital to start again
Nick 'The Viking'A comment there: "Who cares if ads are next to disturbing content"
How does someone get old enough to post that and not encounter people at all ever.