If you or your company are a user of the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter and now known as X, you may be asking yourself; should I continue using the platform under its current leadership?
Since the company was purchased by billionaire Elon Musk it has been at the center of a societal storm of issues of free speech and good taste. Musk has personally driven much of the controversy by embracing the use of his platform by people espousing conspriracy theories and hate speech and by seeming to endorse some of the controversial speech using his own X account.
Things seemed to culminate at the end of last month when Musk told an audience assembled by the New York Times that advertisers leaving the platform to protect their own public reputations could go “f___” themselves. He said it twice.
Since it was founded in 2006, the platform now known as X, has become not unlike a public utility for sharing information about breaking news, opinions, and snark. Its utility as a source of the latest information makes it hard to quit, but nevertheless, many people are quitting or thinking about it. If they do, the downside is the loss of any following they’ve built and the loss of access to the views and opinions of others still on the platform.
From a public relations perspective how do you decide whether to stay or X out? You can start by asking two questions:.
Can I/we live with the real world downside of exiting the platform?
Do I, or the brand I represent, benefit from being part of the X neighborhood and all the questionable characters that inhabit it, beginning with the one in the biggest house on the hill - Elon Musk?
Bottom Line: The decision to stay or go when it comes to Twitter - or any social media platform - is one of risk vs. reward. Your reputation is the one that matters and your reputation is driven in large part by those you choose to associate with.