• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, June 14, 2023

Twitter wants accuracy. But factually accurate -- or something else? We can't read between the lines. Define accuracy, please.

Moving to Twitter from NBC, Linda Yaccarino, now chief executive officer of the social media company, says -- via tweet:  “Twitter is on a mission to become the world's most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication.”

But if by “accuracy” she means to tout those incorrect, misleading, hateful statements, in an accurate way, is that good news?

Will social media advertisers take a leap and hope all this equates to  “brand safety” -- something her linear TV marketing clients always gravitate to?  

Maybe Twitter might believe “safety” is old-school. Perhaps “brand engagement” comes in a new form and definition:  ‘brand-edgy’, ‘brand-fringey’, ‘brand-walking-a-tight-rope’ is the new thing. 

Perhaps marketers in a hailstorm of media disruption, slippage, and unknowns, is just the risky world we play in. Can't find enough reach? Maybe one can find it via some unscripted PR-messaging that hopefully will blow up -- the right way -- for your paid-advertising/earned media campaign.

You want to cut-down on spillage, underdelivery, and failure. Suck it up. Maybe this level of uncertainty is just the new normal.

Yaccarino says: “We can do it all by starting from first principles — questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up. It's rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet.”

So -- trust us? Elon Musk is a visionary who has gotten a lot right -- fast, cool, electric-powered cars, star-seeking machines hurtling through space.  

Go for the ride? Or stay grounded? This is what marketers have to juggle these days.

If you believe that Twitter really wants “accuracy” to be its thing, marketers should press home that promise. Make it a guarantee of sorts -- in whatever form it comes into.

As a private company we don't know where Twitter stands with its advertisers. One New York Times report says Twitter's advertising revenue has declined 59% year-on-year, according to an internal presentation it acquired.

If Twitter was plagued with ‘inaccuracy’ for some time -- with brand safety relegated to some sort of quant old-school thing -- an effort to right this ship will need some major repositioning and repair while still needing to travel to non-stop rough waters.

But keep eyeing those lifeboats.