To regain advertisers’ trust, Twitter must decouple its corporate image from owner Elon Musk’s “personal brand.” That says principal analyst Jasmine Engberg of market researcher Insider Intelligence, who forecasts ad revenue for this year.
Insider Intelligence expects that revenue to fall by more than a third. Although, in October, the research agency still assumed over $ 4.7 billion in advertising revenue, that amount has now been adjusted to just under 3 billion. “The biggest problem with Twitter’s ad business is that advertisers don’t trust Musk,” Engberg explained.
The takeover of Twitter at the end of October last year led to several major advertisers pulling out of the platform. According to research firm Pathmatics, fourteen of the thirty largest advertisers had stopped by January. The walk away happened after Musk announced that he would loosen strict control over the content that is distributed. He also fired more than half of Twitter’s staff, which previously employed about 7,000 people.
The analysts also predict that Twitter use will decrease by 2 minutes to 34 minutes per person per day this year. That would be due to the platform’s technical flaws and messages’ hateful content. There was also a kind of Musk effect in 2022. For example, the developments surrounding the Twitter takeover caused a spike in Twitter use. “It’s gone now because users have lost interest in Musk’s antics,” Engberg said.