TL;DR:
- A quick overview of the hasty rebrand.
- Why Twitter rebranded to X and the problems they created
- How to build audience trust after alienating your people
- A quick brand audit of X's rebrand from Twitter
Timeline of the Twitter Rebrand:
4 June: Twitter announces they're limiting views.
6 June: Competitor Meta launches its version of Twitter - Threads and grows to 100M in 5 days.
23 June: Elon Musk runs a quick competition to find an X he likes so it can be sent live the next day.
24 June: Twitter rebrands to X.
It's messy. Confusing even, but it does have a compelling story. We all want to see how this pans out.
Why Twitter Rebranded
Rebranding overnight with a crowdsourced logo is like giving a learner driver the keys to a Ferrari. Here's why they made the bold move.
Twitter limited the views to halt AI scraping its data. But that felt like an excuse to increase prices and make money. Something they haven't been doing.
People left the platform as they didn't want to pay for access and that snazzy blue tick. Frustration kicks in.
Twitter needs to determine why people use the platform before raising costs. People were there for information. Journalists used it to discover new stories and keep updated with events. They came away with knowledge.
When access became restricted (in a cost-of-living crisis), people boycotted the service to spend time elsewhere. Something here stinks, stinks worse than walking past a Subway – learn more about Scent Marketing – how to differentiate your brand.
Time spent elsewhere means less time watching adverts on the Twitter platform, so ads were moved elsewhere. Advertisers are looking for ROI; to do that, they need eyeballs. Eyeballs lead to clicks. Clicks = purchases = ROI.
On the flip side of this backlash, it did create a heap of PR. The problem was it was generally damaging, but brand awareness grew.
With a bit of a strategy and a vision, this could have gone down a different route and been seen as the first step towards Twitter reinvigorating itself. It could have been seen that they were limiting the views to give committed users extras, but even then, this is a bit of a shady tactic. But arguably, business models change.
My biggest stumbling block for this first part is the acronym T=R+D.
How to Build Audience Trust
To build trust (T) with the audience, you need reliability (R) (or consistency) and new ways to delight (D), invigorate, and get them talking about you to all their friends. Brands need superfans to rave about how awesome they are.
If you alienate your customers and ignore their feelings, you are gonna start p*ssing people off. There's a lack of a brand promise, which is hurting them. If they had something, anything, close to what a brand like McDonald's had, a simple, deliverable product that didn't alter every single day, they would begin building trust.
I'm not gonna get into Threads, but for 100M+ users, it was a delightful experience; sign up, add people you already know and start posting unhinged thoughts. There's no DM's, no ads, no spam. A refreshing experience that will probably change in the future.
From a marketing perspective, Threads nailed it. A lot of user-generated content (UGC), hype, and another platform that signups were pushed from (Instagram). They didn't have to try too hard to capture those first 100m subscribers.
We're a couple years into Threads, and engagement and excitement have died back, but Twitter's problems continue.
Because of the continued dissatisfaction, LinkedIn has seen 8.6% growth in the last year, amassing 70m new users, with many more actively shifting their focus to LinkedIn.
The following section is where the juice of this article lies.
We do know Musk's Twitter vision. To be an "everything" app called X. Where users can communicate, shop, consume entertainment and more.
But it's hard to say if they have strategically planned all these decisions.
Rebrands are huge strategic decisions to shift perceptions, rekindle feelings and build trust. However, the continued bad press surrounding X/Twitter is making it difficult to build trust with users and, most importantly, advertisers. An article on 2 Dec 2023 suggested that some of Musk's profane outbursts and endorsement of anti-Semitic tweets are forcing advertisers like Apple, Disney and IBM to withhold ad spend.
Rebranding Twitter to X
Where to begin?
I start every project with a brand audit. This gives us a clear understanding of where we are and where we want to go. It also looks at verbal, visual, competitor, and behavioural signals.
And this is where it takes a turn. Here's where X was failing. In my opinion, they didn't do enough market research to get an accurate representation of how they were perceived. But I will admit we need X's input to corroborate this if it is accurate.
Visually. Twitter is Larry the Bird. That blue bird is everywhere and reportedly the 16th most recognisable brand in the world.
Verbally. A high percentage of the global population understands what a tweet is. It's just part of our everyday language. But it's been losing ground (like many social media platforms).
Competitor. There's lots of social media platforms all vying for attention. It's a tough market, but they are well-placed among the top platforms. Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Behaviour. Erratic, reactionary.
Visually and verbally, Twitter was strong. Competition is intense, but a distinctive vision of where they want to go is there.
But behaviourally and culturally, we have a mahoosive problem. Pre-Musk, there were 7,500 employees; Post, apparently, there are around 1000 left.
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Here's where they are now that they have rebranded.
Visually. X are a little bit all over the place. The X logo was at the masthead of the website for a while. But the App icon was the original bird for a few months. The colour palette was familiar, which was a good thing; 80% of brand recognition comes from a strong colour palette. But then they all went in on black and white. Which is pretty ordinary. You could also jump on the old Twitter website and download the old birdy icons for your website/marketing.
Side note: Because people use the Twitter logo on their websites, a lot of it is still in the footers and headers of websites that aren't updated regularly.
X carries so many connotations. It's unlimited creativity, X rated, X = No. It's hard to see an emotive connection to the letter X. Unless you're looking at it as a representation of a kiss. Then Millennials and Gen Z will surely find it a little creepy.
Verbally. There's talk of reframing a tweet to an x. And it's too early to tell how X will start using it in a tone of voice.
Competition. Threads is going strong, but in theory, the vision of being an everything app will start setting them apart.
Behaviour. Crowdsourcing a logo isn't a brand identity, and the strategy behind the rollout has been laughable at best.
Conclusion
Eesh, where to begin.
First, a competition to find a logo the owner likes is the biggest reason brands fail to hit the mark. It's not about you, it's about your target market.
People love that blue bird, and there could have been an evolution of the bird, the 2 wings, tail and head could be morphed into an X. It could even have the same flat dynamic.
Second, rebrands must be taken strategically, with patience, consultation and research. This ensures that the final results are cohesive, on time, and on budget, and more importantly, they give you the platform to expand and grow from.
