In the aftermath of Elon Musk's recent announcement – via Tweet – that the short-form text-based platform would be undergoing a complete rebrand, users are left wondering what's next for the platform that revolutionized social media but has more recently been plagued by disinformation scandals.
Yakov Bart, Associate Professor of Marketing, is shocked at the sudden about-face. Twitter, he says, achieved something even more singular. “Anything people use as a verb, like ‘Xerox something,' or ‘Google something' that's a very strong brand,” Bart says. “This is the first example I can think of where the brand became the verb, and it was discarded.”
On the other hand, Amy Pei, Assistant Professor of Marketing, thinks that Twitter needs to distance itself from its recognizable brand because of just how infamous it has become. “When I was in high school, MySpace was really popular, and then people moved on to Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, and now it's more video-based,” she says. “It's an inevitable part of the life cycle. All social media platforms have their golden era, that lasts maybe 10 to 20 years. After that I think it's actually not a bad idea to rebrand.”
Time will tell if “X” is able to successfully pivot itself to compete with other rising social media platforms.