Linda Yaccarino has begun taking measures as CEO to attract advertisers who had abandoned Twitter under Elon Musk’s ownership. She plans to introduce full-screen, sound-on video ads that appear as users scroll through Twitter’s short-video feed; lure celebrities back onto the social network; and work toward building brand partnerships, sources say. In addition, discussions are underway between Twitter and Google regarding an expanded partnership agreement which could include advertising revenue sharing as well as access to their data.
These moves come amid continuing advertiser concerns over hate speech and misinformation on Twitter, leading to declining ad sales. Although many major brands had remained on the platform before Musk took control, his controversial policy decisions and statements alienated many major brands from staying. For example, his decision to drop content moderation, reverse de-platformings, restore accounts belonging to white supremacists who violated rules such as deplatformings as well as lay off many workers before offering paid subscription service limiting tweets to 140 characters with blue verification badge required made him unpopular among advertisers but applauded by free-speech advocates who fear being next to hateful messages or misinformation could make advertisers uncomfortable as it leaves little margin of safety when posting content moderation was tightened down and enforced before taking over control of Twitter changed hands; all major brands left Twitter as their messages could become next to hateful or misinformation that could appear next to hateful speech or misinformation that could appear next time around.
On Thursday, Yaccarino communicated to employees that she would do everything possible to protect and grow the ad business for her company. She highlighted her plan to focus on keeping current advertisers while recruiting new ones while taking a hands-on approach when selling advertising space at her firm.
Unknown is Yaccarino’s success in increasing Twitter ad revenue, but one thing is clear: she won’t have any support from Elon Musk, the tech billionaire has made clear he wishes to step away from running its operations and focus on Tesla and SpaceX instead.
Analysts project it will take Twitter several months before its ad revenue starts to recover from TikTok and other competitors, which have more sophisticated ad targeting technology and are taking away young users from Twitter. Furthermore, its advertising revenue still represents only a sliver of overall revenues and increasing pressure from investors has caused investment bank Wedbush Securities to downgrade it recently to sell.
