Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. We're back with another episode of The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today we're talking about X. That's right. Twitter is now called X. And as I'm sure you can hear from my tone of voice anyway, I am not impressed.
Melanie
I'm not overly impressed either, to be honest. But we could be considered dinosaurs.
Esther
You're going for the age thing again. This is becoming a pattern on our podcast. We're not That old.
Melanie
Goodness, I know I'm not even suggesting it's to do with actual age, but the fact that we've been around a long time, as has Twitter. Some people just don't like change. It took a meteor to get shot of them.
Esther
I don't know what it'll take to get shot of us. But yeah, I suppose you're right. So literally a couple of days ago, I was talking about opal fruits. If anybody can remember opal fruits, they are now called Starburst. I still call them opal fruits. My kids have no idea what I'm asking for, when I want a packet of opal fruits. So yeah, we get used to a name, we get used to a way something looks. I really liked Larry, the Twitter bird. Now Larry, is dead.
Melanie
Larry is dead. But you know, I'm not opposed to change, genuinely, but I just think it was gone about the wrong way, in my opinion. There was no forewarning or practically none.
Esther
No, practically none.
Melanie
And as much as I do think having a good shake-up of an industry is important, I think having a bit of plotting of points and giving people time to adapt and change, I mean, there are, or there were, probably isn't now, but there were very large corporate businesses running their ads and their business campaigns on Twitter who now have to completely rebrand all of their literature, all of their marketing campaigns. I don't know how... I mean, I don't do Twitter ads. I haven't done Twitter ads for years.
Esther
No, I don't do them either.
Melanie
But that's quite a big chunk of change that they got literally no warning about. And although I'm not a mad, keen fan of Facebook either.
Esther
You mean Meta.
Melanie
There you go.
Esther
They also changed, name.
Melanie
But at least they warn us and they give us a conference every year and say, This is where we're going. This is what's coming up. And they warn us and they warn us and they warn us. And in fairness, most marketers now know that all those glitches that you see happening over a period of a few weeks-.
Esther
Like you had.
Melanie
Yeah, that means that something big is happening. And just before Meta Business Suite was kicked off a few years back now, all sorts of gnarly weird things were happening on Creative Studio, which was what we formerly used. But there was no warning.
Esther
No, and I think that's where you could lose your audience because your audience is what helps you grow your business and helps you have revenue. And if you get on the wrong side of your audience, now this could be, if you're thinking of rebranding as well, think very long and hard about it, because your brand is known for something. So everybody saw the little Twitter bird and knew what they were talking about. If we then have to go, because you were saying about corporates changing their branding or changing their marketing and stuff, I have the Twitter bird on my pop-up banner. I'm not going to run out and change the Twitter bird to the X just because of this. I might give it a few months, a few years, see if it sticks, because it could just be a passing phase. Again, going back to some other food branding, they tried to change the name of Coco pops in the UK to Chaco Krispies. Didn't work. It got changed back again. So it could be -.
Melanie
I don't think... I mean, Elon works on a whole different way. I don't see him changing his mind.
Esther
But there was a whole language around Twitter. You sent a tweet, now you just send an X.
Melanie
Yeah.
Esther
You write that down, it looks like you're sending a kiss. Sent you an X. What?
Melanie
Yeah, there's a whole language that's become a massive barrier now. I know some people have said, like when they're opening up on their laptop, for instance, they can't actually see the icon. It looks like that's where you close the tab.
Esther
Oh, yes.
Melanie
Visibility-wise, but if you actually have a look, a lot of our icons on our phones are getting darker.
Esther
They are.
Melanie
Everything used to be blue, light blue, dark blue.
Esther
Twitter, Facebook.
Melanie
And now TikTok.
Esther
Yeah, TikTok's black. Threads is black.
Melanie
See that they're all going dark. I don't know whether that's... Because if you look at brand colour as -.
Esther
It's psychology.
Melanie
But there is a psychology too.
Esther
There is, yeah.
Melanie
They're trying to appeal to a more corporate audience and now Elon is saying, Oh, we're going to be doing all one app. It's going to be an app for everything. But that doesn't really tell us much. It's already come out that Meta own X.
Esther
Yes, they trademarked the letter X.
Melanie
For, for Business
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
Microsoft have trademarked the letter X for finance.
Esther
So, Elon could be stuck and have to change it to something else.
Melanie
Unless he pays them off. I can't see Mark giving it up though.
Esther
No, No I mean, would you?
Melanie
No.
Esther
But okay, so we've talked about how we don't like it.
Melanie
No, you've talked about how you don't like it.
Esther
Okay, I don't like it, yeah. I mean, yes, I am stuck in my ways. I am not liking change. I don't appreciate things changing overnight. Like you said, I don't even like when meta changes things slowly. It's like, Oh, I really liked that that before. You do get used to it. I've had the black X on my phone now for a couple of days, and I still can't get used to it. I'm still looking for the Twitter bird, still looking for Larry on my phone to be opening it and saying it's... The X doesn't appeal to me to click on it and I'm a big Twitter fan.
Melanie
Yeah, I'm a big advocate for Twitter, or I used to be. But since this entire changeover, obviously it used to be free, I used to have a blue checkmark because I earned it. And now everybody can have one because because they for it. So been a huge transformation for my business on X now. But it's... The problem is there's now with threads coming out as well, which we don't have here in Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland.
Esther
Yeah, no, I have it in Northern Ireland, being out of The EU.
Melanie
Obviously, our audience is... We've got a lot in the UK and a huge amount in the US.
Esther
They're going to have it.
Melanie
And Germany, kicking it up there, something great.
Esther
But they won't have it in Germany.
Melanie
No, because they're in Europe.
Esther
Yeah, the EU, because I'm still in Europe. But no, we won't go into that. It's too complicated for a Monday morning. Yeah, Threads has come along to shake the water as well, to shake things up and to give us another option. It looks like Twitter. If you open you could think that you're in Twitter. In X.
Melanie
No, it was Twitter though, and it looks like Twitter.
Esther
There's a few things that they haven't given us yet in threads, like being able to DM people. But it seemed I've been using threads for a couple of weeks now, and I can go into it and feel more... It feels like a nicer platform. There's no negativity. I haven't seen a single post, you see things from people that you've never met before in your life, you don't know them, but because they have an Instagram account, they've been able to open their threads. You might never have even come across the business, the person, the company, any of that beforehand, but you can connect with them or see their stuff without connecting to them on Threads and it's just nice to know. Like I said, I haven't seen any negativity. I haven't seen any fighting or complaining or moaning. Yes, there's ones that go, oh, I really wish we had the DM button. That's fine. Oh, is there an option to add gifts? That's normal, but that's not complaining.
Melanie
I assume because you're relatively new to it, have you connected with a lot of people on Threads yet?
Esther
I think I have about 100 connections, but that's because I was already connected with them on Instagram.
Melanie
So you don't need to connect with them?
Esther
No, if they open Threads and I open my Threads account, then because we were followers on Instagram, we are automatically following each other on Threads. So you don't have to go looking for people and building up your network again.
Melanie
But only if they have a Threads account as well.
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
Well, that's why it's all pink clouds and fluffy right now because you're connected with like-minded people. I'm going to call them twirps, because that's what you're going to get on Threads. Once you've got the twirps that are on Threads that ruin everything, they will mess it up.
Esther
But that's on every platform. We've been on, like Melanie says, yes, we're ancient, we're dinosaurs. We've been on Facebook since the very beginning of Facebook. I was one of the first ones to get Pinterest in the UK. I was on Twitter. I've been on Twitter for a long, long time. I think my last thing was 13 years anniversary on Twitter. So we are early adapters to a lot of things. I do like seeing new things, but don't change my old things on me. We get used to it.
Melanie
Well, yes, but progress is progress.
Esther
Until it's not. Unless it's not, it's not progress if it's just changing the colour.
Melanie
Well that's different. But what what Elon is proposing is much faster but I don't think it's the right platform to do it from. And so I don't know how he's going to change something that's... I mean, there are people out there that do like 60 to 70 tweets a day. Okay.
Esther
You mean x's.
Melanie
Whatever.
Esther
Twixes.
Melanie
Twixes. But let's just call them tweets because there's no real language to it's just yeah and that's how they generate regular content all the time, creating conversations, expanding conversations that they're having with others, and obviously retweeting as well. And now that you can do great long essays on it, you can do whole blogs, you can share multiple videos and photos.
Esther
Yeah, if you're a paid subscriber.
Melanie
Yes, but honestly, there has to be a point where it has to become a profitable model. And the likes of you and I are not doing ads on it.
Esther
That's true.
Melanie
They're not a charity. And I know know extremely wealthy and he's laid off lots and lots of people, but that's because he had to. Not because he wanted to, it's because the model that was currently there wasn't profitable. And I mean, as much as we complain about other and I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole of successful businessmen who nobody likes, the only reason why they're successful, they don't do it for a popularity contest.
Esther
No, it is cutthroat.
Melanie
It is cutthroat. And we've got to stop playing at being business people if you want to make it successful. So, you and I are a bit soft, I think.
Esther
Sentimental.
Melanie
Yeah, but you we're in a very fast paced industry. And if we don't look after number one to a certain extent, why are we doing this? And I think that goes back to the goals and objectives that we constantly hark on about. As as you want to provide a service or provide a product for your clients, it's got to be good for you as well.
Esther
That is true. I will give X a chance, but Elon also knows that there's a lot of competition out there.
Melanie
Yeah.
Esther
If you don't feel like you can get behind X or the way that it's going or the changes that are being made and the additions that are going to come to it, then analyse first, is your audience there? And if they've jumped ship, where have they gone to? That could be your homework. Figure out, do a survey on all of your do a poll on X, do a poll on Meta, do a poll everywhere that you can on your website as well. Put it up there. What platform are you using most for business and for pleasure? Because if people are jumping ship and going to something else, if they're all watching TikToks, why aren't you there?
Melanie
Yeah. And one thing we all suffer from actually. Nobody does sufficient market research.
Esther
No
Melanie
Nobody. Literally nobody. The only people that do regular market research would be large corporates who've got a huge budget behind them. It can be expensive. Let's not pussyfoot around it. It can be. But some people do their market research at the beginning and then never, ever repeat it again.
Esther
Yes. Which is bad because your market can change.
Melanie
Wait, it has to change.
Esther
Yeah. It will either grow with you or outgrow you.
Melanie
Yes, oh I like that.
Esther
Well, we'll end with that then. As soon as we give Melanie something she likes. That's it for today, guys. Do come back next week and we'll be talking about more marketing information. Until then, bye-bye.
Melanie
Oh, yeah. She ended quick, didn't she? Or is it just me?
Esther
Just you to say goodbye.
Melanie
Goodbye.
Yeah, I think that's quite sincerely, one of the most conversational podcasts we've ever done. We had a chat.
Esther
At this point, after 180 something episodes, I don't remember half of them.
Melanie
And you wonder why I harp on about our age.
Esther
I know. I know.
