Introduction
Twitter Inc. is a free social networking platform for people to exchange ideas, build relationships, and access information through short posts known as tweets. The tweets can be texts, videos, links, or photos, and users must have an internet connection to use the website. The Twitter app was designed in 2006 by Evan Williams and Biz Stone using Ruby on Rails, a framework that allows it to be adapted and integrated into other online services. Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass joined the management team and developed it further.
In 2015, the podium growth started to slow compared to other competitors, including Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, thus causing the company to lose a lot of money. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Twitter platform was used to transmit false information. Criminals breached the service by accessing prominent accounts and spreading deceitful political messages. Elon Musk purchased the platform in 2022 to bring sanity and make the platform regain its power. Twitter has since then announced several new features to attract users’ attention and get back operators who are losing interest.
The Background of the Case
Significant changes were made when Elon Musk took over the company’s ownership. The company still needs to provide financial gains despite the increase in active users to more than 330 million and a high volume of use (Twitter, 2019) until the quarter of 2017, when the organization recorded profit due to cost-cutting, though not growing the business. For instance, sales and marketing expenses have been reduced by 25 percent (Twitter, 2019).
There were controversial account reinstatements of users who had been previously banned from the website for violating Twitter’s rules to fight bias in the platform users. For instance, the Capitol Hill rampages were powered by President Trump’s Twitter posts in January 2021 (Ross & Caldwell, 2020). The intention was to make the app more unrestricted and open.
The Problems That the Company Has to Address
Twitter’s management could not cope with the stiff competition in the market. The leadership needed a brilliant team to devise tactics to change the organization’s performance. Cutting marketing expenses to lower costs to increase profits was unsustainable (Twitter, 2019). Banning some people from the platform was an issue that made some users delete their accounts.
For instance, President Trump used the platform to pass official messages to the public. Banning Trump from the podium was a blow that affected many account operators, and others opted to shift to competitors. The company’s leadership needs to find priorities that could sustain its growth. It also needed proper analysis and revision of its selling strategies.
Potential Solutions Recommended to Solve the Problems
The new management needed to change how people see tweets appearing on their timelines. For instance, it created a new tab that helped users make choices regarding the newest tweets based on the platform recommendations or from the people they followed (Abkenar et al., 2023). A blue tick verification was another transformation that was made. Musk ensured that subscriptions were available to everyone who needed them in trying to brand them as a major revenue source for the organization.
Twitter’s rules and regulations were updated, making the platform more open to speech freedom. However, no policies have been changed on the site, but Musk keeps blaming the biases left by the past management (Hutchinson, 2022). Musk fired a massive amount of its moderation staff and some of the top positions employees immediately after he gained full ownership of the platform.
Alternative ways to review Twitter were blocked by suspending access to its Application Programming Interface, which is being used by other social platforms to communicate. The blocking was possible because third-party apps allow users to operate their feed as they like; however, the move is unclear whether it was deliberate (Arora, 2019). The organization did not officially announce it, but most popular apps, including Fenix, Tweetbot, and Twitterific, struggle. Links to other selected competing social apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Truth Social, mastodon, and Post, were banned.
The Chosen Solution and Its Implementation
The solution to ensure that growth is sustainable is to attract more customers. It is possible for the management to change and redesign the Twitter features, which would be more appealing to the users. Revision and proper analysis of the marketing strategies would maintain current users and even fascinate more.
Reinstating some highly prominent people’s accounts would also be perceived as valuing humanity, thus creating a positive view of current and potential users. Implementing new rules and regulations would also be crucial since users can easily violate and misuse the platform without them (Kleinman, 2023). A stern warning is given to anyone spreading controversial messages because social media podiums can easily be used to fuel chaos among people.
Conclusion
Twitter underwent a significant transformation when Elon Musk took over the company’s ownership in 2022. The organization had experienced slow growth despite a massive volume of users and, therefore, required a thorough investigation to identify and resolve the problems. Some changes were vital and could only be done through management change to fit the competitive market. New user-friendly features would challenge the market and attract more customers, increasing sales volume. The solution for the platform to regain its power is to utilize its showcase data to develop better tools and services.
References
Abkenar, S. B., Kashani, M. H., Akbari, M., & Mahdipour, E. (2023). Learning textual features for Twitter spam detection: A systematic literature review. Expert Systems with Applications. Web.
Arora, A., Bansal, S., Kandpal, C., Aswani, R., & Dwivedi, Y. (2019). Measuring social media influencer index-insights from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 49, 86-101. Web.
Hutchinson, A. (2022). A look at all the changes implemented by Elon Musk at Twitter in his time as Chief Twit. Social Media Today. Web.
Kleinman, Z. (2023). Twitter: Five ways Elon Musk has changed the platform for users. BBC News. Web.
Ross, A. S., & Caldwell, D. (2020). ‘Going negative’: An appraisal analysis of the rhetoric of Donald Trump on Twitter. Language & Communication, 70, 13-27. Web.
Twitter, Inc. (2019). Annual Report. Web.