When the Musk era of Twitter began, in a blog post I suggested that the first question the new owner would need to answer and articulate would be what Twitter actually was going to be moving forward:
Twitter is a media company: Twitter “must subsidize its capacity to host a broad, global, democratized media destination that holds professional accounts (from journalists and their publications to marketers and their brands) in equal footing to citizen creators… if this new massive recurring revenue base became predictable and stable over time, Musk could easily show advertising the door and instead charge a heftier fee to allow brands permission to even HAVE accounts.”
Twitter is an advertising company: Twitter “leverages citizen creators, brands and media accounts to attract more users hungry for quick snippets of information or engagement. This audience would, in turn, represent a massive potential audience for targeted promoted content and advertising…quantity of audience beats out quality and is a model where advertising pays the whole tab. “Cherry on top” revenue like subscriptions and priority access options like Twitter Blue become important for bigger numbers but are not the primary focus of revenue projections.”
For over six months, Elon Musk has done everything imaginable to turn Twitter into a media company. The results have not been great. The moves to prop up a subscription dominant business have not gone smoothly. According to a report in Bloomberg, the Twitter Blue subscription has only captured 1% of Twitter’s 500 million monthly users. According to Musk himself, advertising revenue had decreased by 50% between October 2022 and March 2023. There is little visible runway for Twitter to continue on this glidepath of being a subscription-centric media company.
The tweet-nouncement by Musk that NBCUniversal’s powerhouse sales leader, Linda Yaccarino, has joined Twitter as CEO feels like a clear sign that Twitter might be ready to shift course.
First, let’s dig into WHO Yaccarino is.
For all things I have personally heard about her, she is a powerhouse seller, dealmaker and business leader. She’s been credited with making some of the most lucrative deals in her tenure with NBCUniversal. Joining the company in 2011, Yaccarino was named the chair of global advertising and partnerships in October 2020 and her team has been credited with generating over $100 billion in advertising sales for one of the largest and more complex advertising portfolios of media properties that make up NBCUniversal.
When the rumor mill cranked into high gear in the late hours of May 11 most of the comments from advertising thought leaders was WILD approval noting that Yaccarino might be the ONLY executive out there to breathe life back into the ailing blue bird.
What does (or COULD) Yaccarino’s appointment really mean?
This could mean that Twitter will embrace being an advertising platform, bringing some stability to revenues and to the platform itself. This could also be an opportunity to bring back some of the content creators turned off by a once civil space for conversation turning into an almost daily shouting contest across differing ideologies.
But, as an advertising platform, this will mean that the significant and very real concerns advertisers have about content adjacency and moderation be addressed by serious people ready with serious answers. This will also give Twitter an exceptional opportunity to hit pause on hastily made subscription strategies that fostered more ill will with notable content creators than it did drive excitement over exclusive experiences.
As CEO, Yaccarino will need to dissect the business opportunities into segmented, distinct yet intersecting nuanced categories. If given the power, freedom, and capacity to do this, we could see new and even more profitable subscription types and experiences as Twitter evolves. She will need to reinvent the Twitter culture for both customers and employees and while this will initially be an exceedingly painful process (healing broken bonds where trust no longer exists is never easy and usually leaves scars somewhere) that doesn’t always work, it COULD result in something even better.
Musk, in his Tweet about the appointment, also pointed to his continued desire to turn Twitter into an “Everything” app – up until now, this has been an empty promise that felt more like being handed a burnt, stale everything bagel than an improved experience application. With Yaccarino’s arrival, there is the potential to bring that big dream into real world business focus. She could be the voice that articulates the opportunity for creators, consumers and advertisers…and all three parties have been missing this clear articulation of a Twitter vision since well before Musk’s takeover.
HOWEVER, this could also mean rough waters ahead if all Musk has done is hand over the title but withheld the territory from the CEO gig. In his own words, he will be staying on as “CTO in charge of the product.” But for many brands (and more than a few content creators) the product has been horrifically broken under his reign. If Yaccarino only has the mandate to bring advertisers back to a broken trough, it is unlikely we will see Twitter evolve beyond what it is today. And for the advertisers who DO return based on their relationships with Yaccarino and their trust in her skill and expertise, that return will only be as durable as her time is in the role.
Yaccarino is no slouch. She is smart, articulate, savvy and battle tested in some of the roughest media waters around. She isn’t going to wither in the face of irrational man baby tantrums. From what I have learned about her from those who call her a friend, she has a passion for the media business. My sincere hope for her…and frankly for all of us who have always wanted Twitter to succeed…is that she has been giving both title and territory. Only time will tell. And judging by how fast this strange timeline we are in has been moving, Yaccarino won’t have terribly long to make her mark and set the story of the new everything platform X also known as Twitter into motion.
(Image Credit: The image attached to this post was created using Adobe Firefly using the text prompt: Hyper Realistic Blue bird wearing armour standing in front of a burning fire)