How is Twitter Planning to Rebuild?

Linda Yaccarino is the new CEO of Twitter, tasked with helping the app rebuild after what is fair to say a rocky start to the Elon Musk era of the little bird app. And the task has gotten a lot harder in the last week. Mark Zuckerburg and Meta’s new rival app, Threads, has got off to an astronomical start, with some 100 million users in just its first week – thanks to its similarities to the original Twitter app and its links to Instagram, enabling it to quickly build a large user base. 

You would be forgiven for thinking the leadership and responsibility for Twitter rested all with Elon MusK, he remains very vocal on the platform. But it is former Executive at NBc, Linda Yaccarino who will be behind a lot of the changes and plans at Twitter to help the app grow and move forward. That experience at NBC, is a clue into what changes will come to the app. Yaccarino helped build a strong ad supported VOD service at NBC in her previous role. And it is in video that many believe that the Twitter app will throw a lot of focus on in the coming years. 

The hope for Twitter is to become a place that competes with the likes of TikTok and Youtube for video content – and in turn – video promotion and ads. The goal is for people to share their video content directly on Twitter, rather than use twitter as a platform to link to other content. Twitter remains probably the most serious of the social media apps – in that it is where people do come for news as opposed to entertainment. Twitter has a task on its hands to rebuild trust and confidence in the news that users can find on the app. Moderation concerns and the spread of misinformation since the take over have seemingly grown on the app. This needs to be addressed. 

There is also speculation Twitter will itself, like many others, start to make use of AI, specifically for brands and the testing of ads. And with Elon Musk’s past experience in PayPal – the other innovation the app is looking to bring is in-app purchases and shopping. 

One thing is for sure, with the explosive start Threads has made and other emerging platforms like BlueSky – Twitter has a hell of a fight on its hands.