Elon Musk's new rule on Twitter might be undermining its new CEO.
Ad experts claim that the new restriction Twitter's former CEO placed on the platform could undermine the efforts the company's new CEO made to attract advertisers back to the platform again.
Linda Yaccarino, Twitter's new CEO, only started last month and had just begun undoing the damage Musk did on advertisers' perception of Twitter.
Effects of Twitter's New Reading Rate Limit
If Twitter is plunging towards its doom, Musk's new restrictions may have made the process faster than it originally was. You may recall that Musk placed new limits on the number of tweets users can view depending on whether they're subscribed to Twitter Blue or not.
For those unaware, Musk changed the numbers to 800 tweets a day for unverified accounts, 400 for new unverified accounts, and 8,000 tweets for Twitter Blue subscribers - a far cry from the old policy where anyone could read as many tweets as they wanted. Musk explained that the restriction was brought by "several hundred organizations" scraping Twitter data so aggressively that it was already affecting user experience.
Some speculate that these companies are actually dealing with AI.
Unfortunately, ad industry veterans say the restriction is detrimental to Twitter; it creates an obstacle for Yaccarino and her efforts to repair relationships with advertisers who pulled away from Twitter after Musk's takeover of the company, per Reuters citing a Financial Times article.
According to Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester, the limits Musk placed are "remarkably bad" for users and advertisers shaken by what happened immediately after Musk's takeover.
"The advertiser trust deficit that Linda Yaccarino needs to reverse just got even bigger. And it cannot be reversed based on her industry credibility alone," Proulx said.
Lou Paskalis, the founder of advertising consultancy AJL Advisory and former marketing boss at Bank of America, is of the same mind as Proulx, explaining that the restriction he placed means he's not capable of empowering Yaccarino to save him and Twitter from himself - an unfortunate prediction as he claims Yaccarino is Musk's last hope to get advertisers back on Twitter.
Another ad expert, Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, described the restrictions could be detrimental to the platform's ad business, and that it only made convincing advertisers to return to Twitter harder than it already is.
Twitter's Last Hope
If Musk did anything right in his management of Twitter as its CEO, it's appointing Yaccarino as his successor as its top dog. She helped establish close collaborations with big brands, finding opportunities for product placements, and convincing them to advertise alongside TV shows, even those with risque content, making her a sensible pick for the job.
Thanks to her capabilities, she helped NBCUniversal establish and expand a partnership with Elon Musk's Twitter, especially in the coverage of the 2024 Olympic Games in which Twitter will host video from the event, per Engadget.
Ray Wang, the chief executive of Silicon Valley-based research firm Constellation, mentioned that she is the right person for the job since she can balance out Musk and provide the information advertisers need to know in terms of user content and engagement so they feel comfortable about returning to Twitter.
