Elon Musk Could be Your New Twitter Landlord. Will You Keep Renting from Him?
Elon Musk just became the landlord of one of the oldest social networks and the 9th most visited website. If you plan to stay on Twitter I hope you have renter’s insurance.
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind¹, and you don’t build your company brand completely on social media. The last part of this sentence is best practice since the dawn of Internet time; that’s the bit we’re here to talk about. The first bit is nostalgia (see footnote).
So, why not rely on social media alone to build your brand — and what does any of this have to do with Elon Musk? Let’s break this down. Simply put, social media is rented Internet property. The landlords — Zuck, Parag, Shou Zi, Paul or Rohan — can make any change they want to this rental property at any time—they could even demolish it—with no notice to you the renter. Do you see the dilemma? If your entire network, and net worth, is built on social media you could lose everything with little to no notice—unless of course you diversify your portfolio.
I admit I’d forgotten how fragile this ecosystem is. I don’t know whether to blame COVID and social isolation (coz yeah) or the promise of social audio (looking at you Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces), but I’d forgotten about my golden rule: cultivate community on the spaces you own, not the spaces you rent. The latest headlines announcing Elon Musk’s bid for a hostile takeover of Twitter brought me back to my senses. Nothing like the whim of a billionaire to bring you back to reality, amirite?
Musk is probably one of the most extreme examples of what could happen when a new landlord threatens to take possession of your social media rental property — anything from a radical rehab that removes the features you like, to higher rents, turnover of community, or even eviction. If you’ve only been tending to your community on social media then you truly are in danger of losing it all. All hope is not lost though. With a diversified Internet portfolio, and something I like to call Internet renter’s insurance, you can weather any hostile social media takeover with your community intact.
The Golden Rule: There’s Value in Ownership
My common-sense golden rule for clients, and myself, for well over a decade now is this: cultivate your community on the properties you own, supplement them with rental spaces. Owned property is the Internet or online space we control — think your website and email list for starters. Bonus points for taking your community offline through events and meetups (remember those?). The point is, we all need to build our relationships primarily by offering value through our websites, newsletters, events, and any other channel where we control the features and terms, and therefore create the environment that best serves our community and our brand.
I’m not against building a following and relationships on your social channels. Far from it. I am telling you that if you can only contact or serve your community, and promote your brand, through rented social channels then you are making a huge mistake, full stop. Call your followers and your fans into spaces you own by serving them on your terms. Give away something of value and cultivate an email list. Create useful, creative, updated content that gives fans, followers, and clients a reason to go to your website. Have a podcast? Share that on your own site as well as Apple, Spotify (blech), etc. If people already love you on social media, imagine how much they’ll flock to a community that you create with them in mind.
Look, is Elon Musk the big, bad wolf? No. Is he kicking up dust to take over one of the oldest social networks (founded in 2006) and the 9th most-visited website in the world? Yup. I don’t know what will happen, but I know this: change of leadership means one thing — many things will change. Will it be the thing you love about Twitter? Maybe. What’s worse: it might be the thing your audience loves about Twitter. I don’t know how Twitter will change, if Paul and Rohan will sell Clubhouse, or what the changes to the Facebook/Instagram algorithm will be. I do know this: having Internet renter’s insurance means my audience will always have somewhere else to go, and that will be a place I’ve built just for them.
TL;DR
• Social networks are spaces you rent, and can be tweaked, eliminated, or reconfigured at any time without any notice.
• Cultivate your community — fans, followers, clients— primarily on spaces you own.
• Spaces you own include email lists, your website, and any online space that you’ve created and control.
• Ultimately you know what provides value to your community. Give them that.
• Internet renter’s insurance means that you always have a way to interact with your audience outside of rented spaces, and you use that space to serve and provide value.
• If you forget these tenets, the whims of a billionaire will serve as a reminder.
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Footnote
¹This post opens with lyrics from the chorus of Jim Croce’s (if I may) classic tune “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim.” Hat tip to my fellow oldsters.
