The Auron MacIntyre Show - How to Think About Twitter ｜ 8⧸24⧸23

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00:00:30.000 Hey guys, so I thought it was time to make a video about Twitter itself.

00:00:41.860 It's something that I kind of accidentally got decent at.

00:00:45.380 It's something that I didn't set out to be good at, to have a big following on,

00:00:49.860 but that just kind of happened.

00:00:51.660 Originally, I was making YouTube videos, and I thought that, you know,

00:00:55.440 YouTube, I need to get the word out because I'm not getting a lot of traffic right away.

00:00:59.520 What's the best way to do that?

00:01:00.760 And people told me, oh, you should go on Twitter.

00:01:02.580 That's a great place to share your content.

00:01:04.700 So that's why I ended up creating a Twitter account.

00:01:06.980 It was not originally my intention to have any kind of serious platform or footprint over there.

00:01:13.040 But that's kind of the way things have gone.

00:01:15.260 That's where most people now find my work.

00:01:17.300 Obviously, you're watching this on YouTube or listening on the podcast or on Blaze TV,

00:01:21.600 and so you know about the long-form content.

00:01:24.840 But a lot of people first interact with my Twitter, and then they kind of move to one of those other platforms.

00:01:31.560 So Twitter is kind of where a lot of my base started.

00:01:34.580 And so that's interesting because I end up going on these podcasts or I get interviewed by people,

00:01:40.060 and they ask me, oh, how should we be using Twitter?

00:01:42.300 How should we understand Twitter?

00:01:44.260 What's something that people don't get about Twitter?

00:01:45.960 How do you get good at Twitter?

00:01:47.340 And these are all things I've talked about multiple times with different interviewers,

00:01:51.240 but it's all scattered on different guest appearances and that kind of thing.

00:01:54.640 So I thought it would be good to have a discussion on the channel here in one focused video

00:01:59.200 because I don't just want to talk about what Twitter is or how you can get good at it,

00:02:03.240 though I am going to talk about those things.

00:02:04.900 But I also want to talk about changes that are happening.

00:02:07.680 Obviously, we know that Elon Musk is taking the platform in a different direction.

00:02:11.380 He's even technically renamed it, though I refuse to call it X.

00:02:14.540 I'm sorry.

00:02:15.400 Maybe someday I'll catch up with that change, but so far it's still Twitter to me.

00:02:19.880 But I do want to talk about the direction he's taking it because there are big changes on the horizon.

00:02:24.120 I think he's changing some serious parts of Twitter.

00:02:26.740 They're going to alter the way that you can use it and the way you can be successful at it

00:02:29.720 and what the platform even is for a lot of people.

00:02:32.580 And so I want to talk about all that in today's video.

00:02:35.420 But first, let's go ahead and start at the beginning.

00:02:38.340 So what is Twitter?

00:02:39.920 What sets it apart from other social media platforms?

00:02:44.780 That's the thing that you need to think about, right?

00:02:46.860 The social media platform, what makes it important is what it's not.

00:02:51.080 The key to a social media platform is what it's not, right?

00:02:54.860 You don't want every social media platform to do the exact same thing or they all just blend together.

00:03:00.220 We've seen a lot of Twitter clones or Facebook clones or Instagram clones,

00:03:05.960 people just taking the same idea and slapping a different coat of paint on it

00:03:10.200 and calling it a new social media platform, or they try to meld too many aspects of all the different platforms

00:03:16.880 and just swirl them together.

00:03:18.600 And that just gets you nowhere.

00:03:19.760 It's not distinct.

00:03:20.900 It doesn't give people a reason to use the platform.

00:03:24.060 So Twitter has a couple things that make it very different from other social media platforms

00:03:28.840 that allows it to stand out.

00:03:31.040 The first thing really is the user base.

00:03:35.020 The Twitter user base is smaller than most social media platforms.

00:03:39.760 It's very minuscule compared to some of the bigger competitors.

00:03:43.680 However, the key to Twitter is that it captures the right type of people.

00:03:49.000 Twitter is a platform that lends itself due to its limited character aspect.

00:03:54.240 It used to be much shorter, but now it's like 256 or whatever.

00:03:57.840 And I guess now that you can subscribe, you can make it much longer,

00:04:01.180 which is its own discussion about the problems that we'll talk about here in a second

00:04:05.100 where Twitter is going to lose its distinction.

00:04:07.920 But early on, Twitter lent itself to a very particular type of word cell, basically.

00:04:13.300 The kind of person who is good at delivering messages, setting frames,

00:04:19.620 using their high linguistic IQ to kind of bring that to the platform.

00:04:24.880 And so the way that Twitter was shaped, the way that it presented itself,

00:04:29.160 it's self-selected for a particular group that would be successful, that would enjoy it.

00:04:34.560 And it was mainly the kind of people who are cultural movers and shakers.

00:04:39.620 Journalists, media types, those that wrote film or television.

00:04:43.540 It attracted the kind of people who shaped a lot of public opinion.

00:04:49.700 A lot of media, a lot of academia, a lot of celebrities kind of flocked to the platform.

00:04:56.060 And so it created a situation where there are a lot of highly influential people

00:05:01.800 who really regularly were interacting with each other.

00:05:05.100 So when you were on Twitter, you could go directly to the celebrity.

00:05:10.240 You could go directly to the thought leader.

00:05:13.020 You could dunk on the professor.

00:05:15.420 You could make jokes with the comedian.

00:05:18.480 You know, these were all things that you could directly interact with these people.

00:05:22.100 And that's the other big aspect is, in many ways, Twitter has this,

00:05:25.900 the common man can brush up against the celebrity or the influential person aspect to it, right?

00:05:32.200 You can talk to somebody famous.

00:05:34.640 You can influence somebody's opinion who might hold a large amount of sway.

00:05:39.420 You can challenge somebody who holds, you know, a New York Times column or something like that.

00:05:46.200 You can directly interact with, you know, famous people, with opinion shapers.

00:05:51.940 There's this, the average person gets to walk in and kind of interact with these people thing

00:05:56.840 that really sells the platform and sets it apart.

00:06:00.080 Another big thing about Twitter is really the fact that it allows for anonymity.

00:06:06.160 At least it did.

00:06:07.220 Obviously, that might also be something that's going to change, but we'll get to that in a second.

00:06:11.780 But the anonymity aspect of Twitter allows a lot of people who otherwise would have their voices silenced

00:06:18.600 in many countries where they're directly oppressed by their governments

00:06:22.820 or in ones like the United States, where there's not technically legal repercussions all the time.

00:06:29.240 Though, ask Douglas Mackey about that.

00:06:31.400 Anonymous accounts still allow people who would be afraid of getting fired from their job

00:06:35.580 or having their lives destroyed due to political correctness.

00:06:38.860 They can, again, get in there, mix it up, have opinions, have thoughts, and they can express them in a way.

00:06:45.440 Now, a lot of people don't like that aspect of it.

00:06:47.640 People like Jordan Peterson famously got very angry about the fact that people have anonymous accounts on Twitter.

00:06:53.880 But I think it's really essential.

00:06:55.500 I think it allows ideas to flow in a way that they wouldn't anywhere else.

00:06:59.720 You regularly see, again, very large accounts interact with people that they otherwise would never interact with

00:07:05.820 because of this situation.

00:07:07.500 And I think that creates a conversation that just doesn't exist anywhere.

00:07:11.420 It's a dynamic that just doesn't exist anywhere else, which is really interesting.

00:07:16.140 You have plenty of platforms that allow you to just be really anonymous.

00:07:19.920 But you don't have a lot of famous people.

00:07:22.640 You don't have world leaders.

00:07:23.860 You don't have big journalists and movie stars and stuff show up to those places.

00:07:27.600 And you have plenty of places where there's those kind of accounts.

00:07:31.380 Facebook is full of all these accounts from different media empires, different celebrities, government officials, those kind of things.

00:07:40.320 But they rarely really interact with the people there.

00:07:43.800 And then you still have to kind of use your real name on Facebook.

00:07:46.180 And so they definitely don't get the hardest kind of challenges because there's not this interaction between kind of anonymous people

00:07:54.120 who are really able to speak their mind and these really powerful people or people in a lot of influence

00:08:00.120 who actually personally run their account.

00:08:02.560 Of course, there are plenty of people who just have corporate proxy stand-ins.

00:08:07.100 Obviously, Joe Biden's not running his Twitter account.

00:08:09.960 Obviously, that's very clear.

00:08:12.280 But you get people like Donald Trump, right, who really do run their account.

00:08:15.900 That's a real thing.

00:08:17.360 And you can see this because so many celebrities flip out and burn out and post crazy and outrageous things

00:08:24.060 and end up getting themselves in trouble.

00:08:26.660 So you know it's real.

00:08:27.540 Like for whatever reason, whether this is a good or a bad thing, Twitter drives people, even famous people,

00:08:33.260 and even influential people to post for themselves instead of allowing kind of some safe corporate handler to do it for them.

00:08:40.660 Again, not everybody.

00:08:41.480 There's obviously people who have proxies running their accounts for them.

00:08:45.520 But there's a much higher percentage of real person interaction on Twitter than you get kind of with other platforms.

00:08:54.280 Universities today aren't just neglecting real education.

00:08:57.160 They're actively undermining it.

00:08:58.680 And we can't let them get away with it.

00:09:00.360 America was made for an educated and engaged citizenry.

00:09:03.120 The Intercollegiate Studies Institute is here to help.

00:09:06.720 ISI offers programs and opportunities for conservative students across the country.

00:09:11.900 ISI understands that conservatives and right-of-center students feel isolated on college campuses

00:09:16.980 and that you're often fighting for your own reputation, dignity, and future.

00:09:21.880 Through ISI, you can learn about what Russell Kirk called the permanent things,

00:09:25.680 the philosophical and political teachings that shaped and made Western civilization great.

00:09:30.620 ISI offers many opportunities to jumpstart your career.

00:09:34.120 They have fellowships at some of the nation's top conservative publications like National Review,

00:09:38.460 The American Conservative, and The College Thinker.

00:09:41.200 If you're a graduate student, ISI offers funding opportunities to sponsor the next great generation of college professors.

00:09:47.220 Through ISI, you can work with conservative thinkers who are making a difference.

00:09:51.120 Thinkers like Chris Ruffo, who currently has an ISI researcher helping him with his book.

00:09:55.880 But perhaps most importantly, ISI offers college students a community of people

00:10:00.100 that can help them grow.

00:10:01.600 If you're a college student, ISI can help you start a student organization or student newspaper

00:10:06.340 or meet other like-minded students at their various conferences and events.

00:10:11.060 ISI is here to educate the next generation of great Americans.

00:10:14.580 To learn more, go to ISI.org.

00:10:17.520 That's ISI.org.

00:10:19.520 So that brings us to the other thing about Twitter,

00:10:22.080 which is Twitter is, in many ways, a blood sport.

00:10:27.340 Again, this might not be the best aspect of humanity on display here,

00:10:32.640 but it is just something that's true about Twitter.

00:10:35.860 There's obviously many different corners of Twitter.

00:10:38.360 Not everybody's on there for the politics.

00:10:40.280 Not everybody is on there for the gossip or the drama.

00:10:43.640 However, Twitter is the kind of place where this stuff spreads quickly and in public.

00:10:48.500 And so there's always this kind of live combat aspect to it.

00:10:54.140 It's like watching a race, right?

00:10:56.280 You're technically watching the race for the Daytona 500 or the Indy cars or whatever.

00:11:02.600 You're supposed to be watching it for the fact that you want your favorite guy to win.

00:11:07.420 You want to see the exciting changes in position and passing

00:11:12.100 and see who can make it in and out of the pit the fastest.

00:11:14.500 But let's be honest, we all know that to some degree everybody's watching

00:11:18.680 because there might be a car crash.

00:11:20.760 Like something might explode.

00:11:22.220 Somebody might die.

00:11:23.440 Like something horrific might happen.

00:11:25.260 And as much as we don't want to admit to ourselves

00:11:27.180 that that's part of the reason you're watching the race,

00:11:29.920 it is a reason you're watching the race.

00:11:31.900 And this is also true of Twitter.

00:11:33.860 There is this feeling of like everybody's playing with live ammo

00:11:36.580 and at any moment someone could just blow themselves up, right?

00:11:40.540 Someone might just destroy their presidential campaign or destroy their career

00:11:45.920 or become an internet celebrity overnight.

00:11:48.820 And this has ruined many people's lives.

00:11:51.100 It's also made many people rich.

00:11:53.120 It's made many people famous.

00:11:54.840 So there's this very real sense of going viral

00:11:59.460 that can happen for the good or the ill and can happen at any time.

00:12:03.700 And even though you might be in one little corner of Twitter,

00:12:07.120 maybe you might be focused on one kind of specific subject

00:12:10.680 that you're in in Twitter

00:12:12.420 and only a few people follow you in that area,

00:12:14.660 all of a sudden you could post one thing

00:12:17.040 and it could be amazing and a big post,

00:12:19.140 a big account could share it

00:12:20.480 and another big account could share it.

00:12:22.020 And all of a sudden there are millions of views

00:12:24.160 on an account that maybe had 300 followers out of nowhere

00:12:27.540 because of this very viral nature.

00:12:30.240 And so, you know, in many ways Twitter is successful

00:12:33.940 because of the crowd it attracts

00:12:35.780 and the format it has, its viral nature

00:12:39.280 and the fact that it really does allow finally

00:12:42.200 for kind of this inter-faction combat.

00:12:46.880 Twitter is not an echo chamber.

00:12:48.720 So like I said, there's plenty of other sites

00:12:50.740 that have attempted to rip off Twitter.

00:12:52.600 You've had, you know, these different social media proxies.

00:12:57.820 You had, I think, Mastodon was the liberal one all

00:13:00.600 the journalists were trying to flock to.

00:13:03.160 And then of course you have right-wing variants

00:13:05.300 like Gab and things and they all have their merits.

00:13:07.880 I'm not trying to bash anybody.

00:13:09.760 I use Gab as kind of my secondary, you know,

00:13:12.940 backup social media, Twitter proxy.

00:13:16.740 These things exist.

00:13:18.360 However, they tend to be echo chambers, right?

00:13:20.740 There's not a lot of cross-faction contact.

00:13:23.760 As we're in Twitter, because again, it's this public square.

00:13:27.340 It is this hub.

00:13:28.520 Everyone's there.

00:13:29.280 Everyone's interacting.

00:13:30.920 You really do see like the host of a CNN TV show

00:13:34.240 go at it with some, you know, guy with a frog,

00:13:37.840 with a frog in his, in his profile.

00:13:41.720 You know, you'll get people, rappers yelling at,

00:13:44.480 you know, political pundits who are yelling at policemen

00:13:47.920 and government officials.

00:13:48.900 It's just, you know, the left and the right

00:13:51.320 and the libertarians and the communists.

00:13:54.000 They could all just jump on each other any moment.

00:13:56.320 And this kind of constant ability

00:13:59.100 of these different factions, the clash.

00:14:01.320 And, you know, again, it's the coliseum.

00:14:03.020 People show up, they want to see blood.

00:14:04.960 Again, it's not the best part of human nature,

00:14:06.980 but it is there.

00:14:08.800 And if you want to understand the platform,

00:14:10.700 that's something you want to understand about it.

00:14:13.120 So that's what Twitter is.

00:14:15.160 So how can people use Twitter?

00:14:18.160 What are the best ways to use Twitter?

00:14:20.660 What's the best ways to understand it?

00:14:22.320 Well, there's a couple different ways

00:14:24.020 to think about Twitter.

00:14:25.520 Obviously, the first thing is how you want to use it, right?

00:14:28.880 Your goals could be very different.

00:14:31.180 So I can explain to you from my experience

00:14:33.700 and, you know, political punditry,

00:14:35.980 what some things that work for me,

00:14:37.480 but that might not be what works for you

00:14:39.560 if you have an entirely different kind of idea

00:14:43.260 of who you want to be or what you want to do

00:14:45.440 or how you want to present yourself.

00:14:47.040 A lot of people just want to go on Twitter

00:14:48.380 and basically lurk, right?

00:14:50.480 They just want to read the posts.

00:14:52.000 They want to see something from their favorite people.

00:14:53.920 They want to check in on what's going on.

00:14:56.280 And that's fine.

00:14:57.060 Twitter is probably the best news site in the world,

00:15:01.220 not because everything on it is accurate,

00:15:03.920 but because it's unfiltered in many ways.

00:15:06.320 We actually know Twitter is highly filtered

00:15:08.180 by the government,

00:15:09.180 or it was under previous administrations of Twitter,

00:15:12.320 especially from the Twitter files.

00:15:14.840 However, even with all of that censorship,

00:15:17.220 it is still probably the least filtered

00:15:20.540 kind of version of the news

00:15:21.940 because, again, Twitter goes viral.

00:15:24.280 Things explode immediately.

00:15:25.800 And so Twitter can have news stories

00:15:27.520 hours before any major news site has anything on it.

00:15:32.520 They can have, they scoop things all the time.

00:15:34.840 And it's not just being scooped,

00:15:35.940 it's being interacted with repeatedly.

00:15:37.800 It's being iterated on.

00:15:38.860 People are immediately looking for more information.

00:15:42.380 They're doing more research, all of these things.

00:15:44.620 And so Twitter is an excellent just news aggregator.

00:15:48.100 Again, you have to become the filter.

00:15:49.720 You have to learn what to trust,

00:15:51.460 who to trust, what information is reliable.

00:15:54.780 You have to, you can't just go on there

00:15:56.480 and say, well, because it's on Twitter, it's real.

00:15:59.280 But if you just want the raw feed

00:16:01.360 of kind of the matrix, right?

00:16:02.560 You just want to see the ones and zeros going by,

00:16:04.640 and then you make the decision of kind of what is real

00:16:07.520 and what isn't, Twitter's your source.

00:16:09.660 So that really is where this kind of world news mind

00:16:13.080 dumps itself before anything gets filtered

00:16:15.660 through the AP wire and spit back out as propaganda.

00:16:18.400 So if you're just that person

00:16:19.920 and you just want to see some of your favorite content creators

00:16:22.780 or social media people,

00:16:24.420 or you just want to check in on the news, that's fine.

00:16:27.000 That's a great way to use Twitter.

00:16:28.360 And you don't have to do a lot of posting.

00:16:30.700 That's not a big deal.

00:16:32.060 Just enjoy it.

00:16:33.020 However, if you're going to post

00:16:34.680 and you're posting for a particular reason

00:16:38.100 beyond just sharing a few things with a friend

00:16:40.020 or, you know, you've got a small group of internet friends

00:16:42.520 or real life friends

00:16:43.440 and you just want to post things between each other

00:16:45.280 so other people can see it.

00:16:46.840 Again, if that's what you're doing,

00:16:48.420 by all means, that's great.

00:16:49.860 Not everybody needs to try to grow their account.

00:16:52.260 Not everybody needs to try to become big on Twitter.

00:16:54.780 I'm just saying, you know, this advice will not be for you.

00:16:57.520 This will be advice for people who specifically

00:16:59.640 are looking to grow their account

00:17:01.680 and try to kind of get a larger voice on Twitter.

00:17:05.600 So a couple things to think about

00:17:07.940 when you're looking at Twitter.

00:17:09.120 I think there are probably three main types

00:17:12.180 of really successful Twitter accounts.

00:17:14.600 Obviously, if you're LeBron James or Donald Trump,

00:17:17.940 you're going to be, you're just going to be successful

00:17:20.100 because your name is already huge.

00:17:22.220 So that this is not, you don't need any advice from me.

00:17:24.980 You're not coming to watch this video

00:17:26.180 if you're Donald Trump or someone like that

00:17:28.780 who automatically would have a huge audience anyway.

00:17:31.320 But if you're an average person

00:17:32.960 who's trying to grow on Twitter,

00:17:35.360 I think there's kind of three main archetypes

00:17:38.600 of how that happens.

00:17:40.400 So the first one is the meme account.

00:17:43.640 Meme accounts are really easy to do

00:17:46.820 and they're usually easy to get successful with.

00:17:50.640 You can grow a very large meme account very quickly

00:17:53.680 and it's great, especially now that Twitter is monetized,

00:17:57.320 which is again, something we'll address

00:17:58.440 near the end of the video.

00:17:59.680 But now that Twitter is monetized,

00:18:02.080 meme accounts can be incredibly profitable

00:18:04.440 because they're highly shareable.

00:18:06.640 Again, viral nature of Twitter.

00:18:08.480 That's something to always remember about Twitter,

00:18:10.680 the viral nature of it.

00:18:12.240 One of the big mistakes people make,

00:18:14.600 again, is they get on there

00:18:15.620 and they want to type the one big thread, right?

00:18:18.360 They want to get on there

00:18:19.060 and make the big effort post

00:18:20.740 that's going to blow everybody's mind

00:18:22.380 and show how smart they are.

00:18:24.380 And once everybody reads it,

00:18:25.660 they'll finally be recognized

00:18:27.160 as kind of the intellectual luminary that they are.

00:18:30.020 But that's not really what Twitter rewards.

00:18:33.020 Twitter is a visual medium in a lot of ways.

00:18:35.520 It's a quick catch thing.

00:18:36.820 People are scrolling through their feed really quick

00:18:39.680 or they're looking at their phone

00:18:41.740 in between sets at the gym

00:18:42.920 or on the toilet or whatever.

00:18:44.560 Let's be honest, you know you're doing it.

00:18:46.620 And they're not spending a lot of time on each post.

00:18:50.880 So if you just hit people with walls of text all the time,

00:18:53.600 they're not going to pay attention

00:18:54.960 if they don't know who you are.

00:18:56.840 So these effort posts,

00:18:58.100 these high intellectual internet posts,

00:19:00.240 you can do those.

00:19:01.480 However, you usually need an audience of some size

00:19:04.760 before those become successful.

00:19:06.700 So meme accounts are great

00:19:08.280 because they are fantastic for going viral.

00:19:10.780 They're very accessible for most people.

00:19:12.720 They tend to have a good outreach.

00:19:16.520 They're easy to monetize

00:19:17.700 if that's something you're worried about.

00:19:19.020 If you, as long as you're not doing super spicy memes,

00:19:21.560 you know, you usually are very easy to stay monetized.

00:19:24.280 And so you're going to see a higher return

00:19:26.060 if you're a subscriber on Twitter Blue.

00:19:29.380 And so these are all advantages of the meme account.

00:19:32.080 Again, you can see these things, you know, start

00:19:34.620 and they can skyrocket, become very popular very quickly.

00:19:38.440 So if you just want to do a very basic account,

00:19:41.780 you don't want personal notoriety.

00:19:44.500 You just want to,

00:19:45.280 because usually these are anonymous, right?

00:19:47.040 You usually, it's kind of a libs of TikTok thing

00:19:49.540 where eventually you might become a big deal

00:19:52.840 once your account's huge.

00:19:54.400 But for the most part, it's under a pseudonym.

00:19:56.480 It's usually anonymous.

00:19:58.020 And so you kind of can set this up,

00:20:01.720 not have to put your face out there,

00:20:03.060 not have to put your personality out there,

00:20:04.840 get a large imprint, maybe make some money off of it.

00:20:07.900 This is a good way to get things started.

00:20:09.460 Also, if you're just the, even if this isn't your plan,

00:20:12.680 if your plan isn't to become a meme account,

00:20:15.080 posting memes is still a great idea.

00:20:16.940 This is where I really got started.

00:20:18.640 To be honest, I was making memes.

00:20:21.100 And it's great if you can make the memes

00:20:22.200 because then they're original to you.

00:20:24.380 And so if you're posting memes that are original to you

00:20:27.000 and people can recognize that they're not just something

00:20:28.860 that you ripped off a Facebook page somewhere

00:20:31.180 or found on the internet and they've seen it a million times,

00:20:33.520 then they'll start to recognize your account

00:20:35.680 and you'll stand out.

00:20:36.680 But even if you're not a meme account,

00:20:39.080 memes are still a fantastic way,

00:20:40.760 especially if you're the one making the memes

00:20:42.440 to really grow a brand and get noticed.

00:20:45.940 So even if you're not a meme account, mix them in.

00:20:48.980 But just in general, memes are a great way.

00:20:51.560 It's like one of the three pillars of Twitter

00:20:54.180 if you wanna have a successful account.

00:20:56.380 The second way to really structure your account

00:20:58.820 and the second archetype you can have

00:21:00.540 is to focus on a specific topic, a specific subject.

00:21:04.540 So the subject matter expert

00:21:06.860 is somebody who's repeatedly posting on the same thing.

00:21:11.100 So whether it's working out, gardening, politics,

00:21:15.660 video games, whatever it is that you're focused on,

00:21:19.120 if you can keep yourself kind of mostly in that lane,

00:21:22.400 it doesn't have to be every single thing you post,

00:21:24.740 but 75% at least probably needs to be on that topic,

00:21:28.700 maybe even higher,

00:21:29.500 so that you're consistently providing something

00:21:32.720 that people want to tune into you for.

00:21:35.440 So you probably won't be anyone's favorite account this way

00:21:38.640 as like a general use,

00:21:40.080 but you will be a lot of people's go-to source

00:21:43.660 on kind of a particular thing.

00:21:45.600 And this is very useful

00:21:46.420 because a lot of people usually have multiple interests.

00:21:48.600 So maybe you've got somebody who's interested in politics,

00:21:50.920 but they also play video games.

00:21:52.720 So like sci-fi literature,

00:21:54.620 they like funny cat videos,

00:21:56.060 like they're going through all these different topics.

00:21:58.940 And so they kind of assemble

00:22:01.020 all these different accounts that they're following,

00:22:03.180 each of which are experts in a specific area.

00:22:06.420 So if you can consistently post on something,

00:22:08.660 if you're a subject matter expert

00:22:09.960 or you're passionate about something,

00:22:11.720 you're willing to do research or make content on it,

00:22:14.560 you're willing to do deep dives or make videos,

00:22:17.500 these are all things that you can do

00:22:19.440 and kind of create that subject matter expert class.

00:22:22.520 Now, there's also some crossover here

00:22:25.680 with the meme account.

00:22:26.540 You've probably noticed there are meme accounts

00:22:28.140 that only post about a specific thing.

00:22:30.680 So, you know, these are memes that are all about sports

00:22:33.260 or these are memes that are all about cats

00:22:34.980 or these are memes that are all about politics

00:22:37.500 or, you know, whatever.

00:22:38.740 And so, you know, these aren't mutually exclusive,

00:22:41.680 but I'm just saying if you want to move beyond

00:22:43.720 just the, I don't have a face,

00:22:45.400 I don't have a personality,

00:22:46.780 all I do is post memes and they're funny

00:22:48.600 to something where I express opinions

00:22:51.640 and I actually kind of have a more meaningful content

00:22:55.740 that allows people to understand what I'm thinking

00:22:58.280 and more of a personality,

00:22:59.760 then this is where your subject area expert really helps.

00:23:03.080 Again, focus is really important.

00:23:04.980 If you're a subject matter account

00:23:07.680 and you start posting off subject,

00:23:09.740 you'll see a huge dip in your responses

00:23:12.820 when you post off subject.

00:23:14.900 Again, that doesn't mean you can't ever do it.

00:23:16.720 Doesn't mean you can't ever try to branch out.

00:23:19.100 Don't be a slave 100% just to that one thing.

00:23:22.620 But just remember, that's why most people are following you.

00:23:25.820 So if you branch out, you want something that's adjacent

00:23:27.840 or something like that,

00:23:29.200 you don't want to just start, you know,

00:23:30.680 building your entire account around,

00:23:33.260 you know, your knowledge of basketball or something

00:23:35.400 and then immediately start posting about.

00:23:38.880 What's better than a well-marbled ribeye

00:23:40.880 sizzling on the barbecue?

00:23:42.540 A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue

00:23:44.940 that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper

00:23:47.700 and delivered to your door.

00:23:49.260 A well-marbled ribeye you ordered

00:23:51.100 without even leaving the kiddie pool.

00:23:53.740 Whatever groceries your summer calls for,

00:23:56.100 Instacart has you covered.

00:23:57.900 Download the Instacart app

00:23:59.120 and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

00:24:02.760 Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.

00:24:05.520 Instacart.

00:24:06.380 Groceries that over-deliver.

00:24:07.940 Anime or politics or something.

00:24:10.800 You want to stay focused in a specific lane in general

00:24:14.660 that will kind of bring people back to you

00:24:17.100 over and over and over again so you're well-known.

00:24:20.060 This is another time to remind people

00:24:22.460 that Twitter is great for repetition.

00:24:25.880 A lot of people post things once online

00:24:29.040 and they think that that means that everyone has seen it.

00:24:32.600 But that's not really the case.

00:24:34.840 Twitter shows your followers

00:24:36.640 actually a very low number of your actual posts,

00:24:39.520 especially if they follow a wide variety of people.

00:24:41.980 So if you only follow like 200 people,

00:24:43.920 you'll probably see a lot of their posts.

00:24:45.760 But if you're following a thousand or more people,

00:24:48.180 which a lot of people do,

00:24:49.980 you're really going to see very few

00:24:51.640 of the posts that people make.

00:24:53.340 So remember that as when you are as a poster

00:24:55.520 putting something out there,

00:24:56.560 a lot of people ask me,

00:24:57.580 hey, why do you keep repeating this thing or that thing?

00:24:59.340 And the one answer is, well, it's really important.

00:25:01.960 But two, it's because Twitter is a place

00:25:04.800 that actually rewards that repetition.

00:25:07.940 If you are known for something,

00:25:09.100 if you're known for subject matter expertise

00:25:11.140 and you're repeating essential things

00:25:13.560 that people need to understand,

00:25:14.960 that can start to become a slogan.

00:25:16.860 That can start to be something that you're known for.

00:25:19.540 And that's good.

00:25:20.520 That kind of creates that feedback

00:25:22.200 where people identify an opinion

00:25:24.280 or a position with you

00:25:25.980 and they come back to you over and over again.

00:25:27.900 And when they see it, they call it out,

00:25:29.360 they tag you in it.

00:25:30.500 That's a positive development.

00:25:31.720 That means you're building an audience.

00:25:33.440 The third type of account

00:25:35.480 is just the personality account.

00:25:37.880 Now, these are mostly celebrities.

00:25:39.820 Celebrities come with a built-in fan base

00:25:42.860 that are just going to listen to them no matter what.

00:25:45.160 It doesn't matter what LeBron James

00:25:46.920 actually knows about politics or education or something.

00:25:49.800 He can still start a school.

00:25:50.980 He can still prattle on about an election

00:25:54.080 and people are going to pay attention to him

00:25:55.760 because he's just one of the best basketball players

00:25:57.340 of all time and it doesn't matter

00:25:58.940 how much he actually knows about things.

00:26:00.820 But if you want to become a personality account,

00:26:03.480 you really probably need to start

00:26:05.680 in a particular area first.

00:26:08.240 Usually, if you're not a celebrity,

00:26:10.120 if you're not somebody that just came

00:26:11.260 with a massive audience,

00:26:12.420 you'll need to be known for something else originally,

00:26:16.000 usually a subject matter expertise

00:26:18.020 or you had some kind of show you're producing

00:26:20.180 or something like that.

00:26:21.280 And then people just become interested in you in general.

00:26:24.780 But again, this is the account

00:26:26.620 that allows you to have the most wide variety

00:26:30.120 of things that you're going to post on.

00:26:31.800 You can post about what you're doing,

00:26:34.100 what you're making in the kitchen

00:26:36.900 and then a vacation post

00:26:39.180 and then your thoughts on a presidential election

00:26:40.980 and then what you've been reading

00:26:42.420 and what you think about a TV show

00:26:44.160 and all these things.

00:26:45.440 And that's great.

00:26:46.260 I guess you can really use it

00:26:47.360 like I guess most people use real social media,

00:26:50.180 but it only really works

00:26:51.860 if you already are a personality

00:26:53.560 that people are very compelled and interested in.

00:26:57.160 You'll see a number of people have done this.

00:27:00.220 They start as a political pundit

00:27:02.220 or they start as a video game streamer,

00:27:04.840 that kind of thing.

00:27:06.220 And they build enough celebrity

00:27:07.840 to where basically they don't have

00:27:09.800 to only talk about that stuff anymore

00:27:11.240 and they can generally expand.

00:27:13.260 So it is its own thing.

00:27:15.280 I think it's its own distinct account,

00:27:16.920 but it usually gets spun off of,

00:27:19.740 again, a subject matter expert

00:27:20.980 or somebody who is already creating an audience

00:27:23.980 that then is compelled to listen to them

00:27:26.500 about a much wider variety of things.

00:27:29.380 If you want an example of this,

00:27:30.980 think of somebody like maybe PewDiePie

00:27:33.340 or a lot of the Call of Duty streamers.

00:27:35.960 I don't know if a long time ago,

00:27:38.220 I don't know if you guys remember this time on YouTube,

00:27:40.700 there are guys like Drifter and Woody's Gamer Tag

00:27:45.320 and they started just doing videos

00:27:47.820 about how to get better about playing Call of Duty.

00:27:51.220 And then eventually they got such big audiences

00:27:53.360 that people started watching them play Call of Duty

00:27:55.720 while they were talking about their lives

00:27:57.680 or their girlfriends or race cars

00:27:59.740 or political philosophy or fiction or movies.

00:28:03.660 And eventually their audiences

00:28:06.320 didn't really care much about the Call of Duty anymore.

00:28:09.080 And what they really cared about

00:28:10.020 was these people's opinions

00:28:11.240 on a vast variety of subjects.

00:28:14.480 PewDiePie, again, liked that

00:28:15.600 where a lot of people started watching him

00:28:17.280 for the video games,

00:28:18.340 but then they were just watching him

00:28:20.000 for the many different things that he did.

00:28:21.900 He started doing meme reviews

00:28:23.200 and then he was talking about Aristotle.

00:28:26.440 He just went all over the place

00:28:27.620 and he still had an audience

00:28:28.880 that was willing to follow him.

00:28:30.120 The same thing could be true on Twitter,

00:28:31.800 but you usually have to start somewhere else.

00:28:34.640 You have to pull people in on a different thing

00:28:37.040 and then eventually you can kind of have

00:28:38.780 one of these personality accounts

00:28:39.940 if you're successful enough.

00:28:41.340 All right, so those are the ways you can use Twitter.

00:28:43.840 Those are ways to think about Twitter.

00:28:45.960 A couple of other things

00:28:48.100 that aren't necessarily related directly

00:28:50.820 to how to grow an account,

00:28:53.240 but just ways to think about Twitter.

00:28:55.080 When people are posting on Twitter,

00:28:57.060 there are very emotional people.

00:28:59.520 There are a lot of people who are just posting

00:29:01.080 because they're emotions,

00:29:02.080 but also remember there are a lot of people

00:29:04.440 who are posting for a very specific agenda and purpose.

00:29:08.780 They have a disciplined understanding

00:29:10.480 of what the platform does and how to use it.

00:29:14.080 And you can really see this interaction

00:29:16.740 when a professional influence person

00:29:20.480 kind of gets into it with a motive person

00:29:23.040 because that person will step in

00:29:25.040 and they're just arguing

00:29:26.620 like a boomer argues politics on Facebook, right?

00:29:29.600 I can't believe you said that.

00:29:31.020 I can't believe blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:29:33.240 When people are doing that

00:29:34.760 and then you see the account

00:29:36.120 just kind of use them and humiliate them

00:29:38.840 in front of their audience,

00:29:40.520 that account is doing something very different, right?

00:29:43.520 The bigger account is using,

00:29:45.740 the person who's more disciplined

00:29:46.920 is using the emotion of the posters

00:29:49.940 to entertain their own audience

00:29:52.240 and reinforce their own ideas

00:29:54.380 and spread their own ideas.

00:29:56.060 So there are very disciplined ways to use Twitter

00:30:00.100 and to understand those social interactions

00:30:02.620 and turn them to advantage,

00:30:04.500 but they require a different

00:30:06.240 and more methodical way of posting

00:30:08.560 as opposed to somebody who is just out there

00:30:11.400 kind of feeling things and throwing things out there.

00:30:13.980 A couple other things to take advantage of

00:30:16.400 if you're just trying to understand ways to grow Twitter.

00:30:19.240 Twitter does not always, again,

00:30:22.140 necessarily reward in-depth content.

00:30:24.940 That doesn't mean don't make in-depth content.

00:30:26.760 I'm not saying don't be smart on Twitter.

00:30:28.340 You should absolutely be smart on Twitter.

00:30:30.360 What I'm saying is understand

00:30:31.820 that that is usually rewarded

00:30:33.720 after you have eyes on you for other things.

00:30:36.660 So again, quick reactions to headlines, posting memes.

00:30:41.620 The key is regular content.

00:30:43.820 Twitter rewards regular content.

00:30:46.040 If you're active and in the algorithm,

00:30:48.480 you'll notice a lot of people

00:30:49.520 who say very unintelligent or vapid things

00:30:53.640 have a very large amount of interaction

00:30:56.880 and wide audience.

00:30:58.180 That's because they're appealing to the fact

00:31:00.080 that the algorithm prefers that kind of interaction.

00:31:03.640 Now, one of the things I like to do

00:31:05.440 is post wide and then post specific.

00:31:09.220 So I'll do something that I know

00:31:10.980 is gonna get a good wide reaction.

00:31:12.920 It's gonna draw a lot of people in,

00:31:14.100 a good meme or a good headline reaction

00:31:16.260 for something that is very popular at the moment

00:31:18.440 that is gonna give me a lot of reactions in the algorithm.

00:31:21.960 And then I will follow up

00:31:23.700 with something that is more specific,

00:31:26.260 intelligent, thorough,

00:31:28.180 you know, that kind of thing brings in the detail.

00:31:30.440 So you start with the wide funnel

00:31:32.040 that brings in the audience

00:31:33.600 and then you get down to specific stuff

00:31:35.940 that allows you to kind of open up

00:31:37.680 and give a more complicated and intelligent response.

00:31:41.500 Just remember that, you know, you gotta have a billboard

00:31:44.500 before you can get people to the restaurant.

00:31:46.400 You know what I mean?

00:31:46.860 You gotta have simple advertisements

00:31:48.820 before people come down and sit down

00:31:50.300 and watch your exciting movie.

00:31:52.440 You just have to do these things

00:31:54.040 that'll bring in the people

00:31:55.120 before you usually get the wider audience.

00:31:57.580 Once you have it,

00:31:58.280 once you've got that kind of larger audience,

00:32:00.340 then you can post those big, you know,

00:32:02.200 think pieces and people will notice them.

00:32:04.460 But if you effort post

00:32:05.580 and you put out these massive threads

00:32:07.060 and you release your life's work,

00:32:08.800 it's very intelligent

00:32:09.700 and you have no one watching your account

00:32:12.200 because there's just nothing

00:32:14.420 that's engaged with the algorithm previously,

00:32:16.160 then you'll just have dropped it into nothing.

00:32:18.740 It'll be dropped into a void.

00:32:20.340 So that's something to keep awareness of.

00:32:22.860 Think, pay attention to what's rolling on Twitter,

00:32:25.680 what's in the algorithm.

00:32:28.560 You know, these things pop up

00:32:29.940 and that doesn't mean you have to chase

00:32:31.940 every one of these.

00:32:33.040 If you don't have something smart to say,

00:32:34.840 you don't have something interesting to say,

00:32:35.960 just don't say it.

00:32:36.880 Don't just, you know,

00:32:37.620 say things for the sake of saying them.

00:32:39.760 However, if you do see something that is,

00:32:42.740 you know, that is a big event,

00:32:44.460 if a big event is happening

00:32:45.720 and a lot of people are talking about it simultaneously

00:32:47.880 and you have something intelligent to say on that,

00:32:50.240 then focus on it

00:32:50.960 and don't be scared to say multiple things about it.

00:32:53.120 Don't be scared to post about it multiple times

00:32:56.080 because it's going to pop in the algorithm multiple times,

00:32:58.540 that kind of thing.

00:32:59.320 All right, so those are just some tips on how to use them.

00:33:01.860 Again, those are only useful

00:33:03.040 if you're wanting to grow an account.

00:33:04.340 If you want to have somebody be somebody

00:33:06.220 who has some influence or a audience on Twitter,

00:33:11.400 you know, just never get too big for your britches.

00:33:13.780 At the end of the day, it's Twitter.

00:33:15.600 But just, you know,

00:33:16.400 that if you want to grow that stuff,

00:33:18.460 that's for you.

00:33:19.400 If you don't want to be that person,

00:33:20.760 if you just want to enjoy the news

00:33:22.600 or the memes or whatever,

00:33:24.040 then ignore all that.

00:33:25.380 That's not a big deal for you.

00:33:27.140 Last thing I want to talk about

00:33:28.420 is where the platform is going.

00:33:30.700 So Elon is making a lot of changes.

00:33:33.200 Some of these changes are for the better.

00:33:35.840 Some of these changes are for the worse.

00:33:37.780 Some of these changes,

00:33:38.660 I'm not sure where they're going,

00:33:40.120 but let's talk about a few of them.

00:33:42.040 So obviously the first thing that happened

00:33:43.480 is a lot of banned accounts got returned

00:33:45.660 and some things that you used to not be able to talk about,

00:33:48.740 like a pandemic that I still can't really get into on YouTube,

00:33:51.760 or you're allowed to talk more candidly

00:33:54.460 about trans issues, those kinds of things.

00:33:56.820 That stuff has changed.

00:33:58.040 And so those things are good on Twitter.

00:34:00.300 It's better that we don't have those level of restrictions.

00:34:03.620 It's still not a free speech platform, to be clear.

00:34:06.560 It's still not just you can post anything

00:34:09.020 that they can and do and regularly

00:34:11.340 will ban people over all kinds of stuff.

00:34:15.120 So I'm not saying that Twitter is perfect at all.

00:34:18.340 It's not.

00:34:19.280 But obviously it's somewhat better,

00:34:22.660 especially on a couple of specific issues

00:34:24.880 than it used to be.

00:34:25.940 And it's nice to have accounts like the Babylon Bee and stuff back.

00:34:28.880 So those are positive changes,

00:34:31.380 even though, again, it's still very possible to get banned.

00:34:34.500 You could still get brigaded with three reports,

00:34:36.980 those kind of things.

00:34:37.940 So I'm not saying that they fix those problems, really,

00:34:40.600 that they still exist.

00:34:42.040 So that's one change that Elon has made.

00:34:45.480 A big one that is coming now

00:34:47.980 is monetization and sponsors.

00:34:51.860 So a really interesting thing that's happened

00:34:54.060 is Elon wants to pay people to post.

00:34:57.160 I mean, I'm sure you've seen a lot of big accounts

00:34:59.500 post these huge things in their bank account.

00:35:02.380 Yeah, all of a sudden they get tens of thousands of dollars

00:35:05.160 show up in their bank account,

00:35:06.360 which is fantastic, good for them.

00:35:08.140 I mean, you know, some money is better than none.

00:35:10.420 So that's great.

00:35:11.480 A lot of people were doing this for free, essentially,

00:35:13.720 and now they're getting paid.

00:35:14.720 So that's very nice.

00:35:16.360 But this is also tied in

00:35:18.400 with kind of the blue check thing, right?

00:35:19.960 So a big change that happened on the platform

00:35:22.860 was Elon opening up the subscription service

00:35:25.460 and the blue checks.

00:35:27.240 So originally blue checks were only given to people

00:35:30.640 who had some kind of social status.

00:35:32.880 They had some kind of government position.

00:35:34.660 They were celebrity.

00:35:35.860 It was a system where it was very opaque.

00:35:38.420 You didn't really understand what was going on.

00:35:39.840 No one was sure how and why

00:35:41.440 sometimes you would get a blue check.

00:35:43.100 You could apply for it,

00:35:44.120 but a lot of people who should have got one

00:35:46.500 under kind of the rules of Twitter didn't get one

00:35:49.580 and people who were obviously famous

00:35:51.880 and needed the blue check to differentiate themselves

00:35:54.280 and keep them from having spoof accounts made of them,

00:35:57.140 which was the original purpose of the blue check in theory.

00:35:59.880 They got their blue checks taken away from them

00:36:02.080 or denied to them just because Twitter hated them

00:36:04.760 and it was kind of a political black mark

00:36:07.200 to take away your blue check and that kind of thing.

00:36:10.080 That was the original purpose of the blue check.

00:36:11.880 But when Elon took control,

00:36:14.200 he made blue checks basically purchasable.

00:36:16.920 You just pay for the subscription

00:36:18.220 and along with kind of getting higher engagement

00:36:21.540 and all these things,

00:36:23.020 you would also get the ability to have this blue check

00:36:25.920 to kind of differentiate yourself.

00:36:28.340 Now that had kind of two effects.

00:36:30.840 One, it blew up the blue check mafia. 0.94

00:36:33.840 Blue check used to mean you were basically regime approved.

00:36:36.700 You know, you were a journalist or you were a celebrity

00:36:39.520 or you were somebody who was in good standing with the regime.

00:36:44.780 And so that's why you received your blue check.

00:36:47.620 Now, if you had a blue check,

00:36:49.240 it just meant you paid for it,

00:36:50.420 which meant all of a sudden having a blue check

00:36:52.520 next to your name didn't really mean any kind of status.

00:36:55.740 It didn't confer any kind of privilege,

00:36:59.160 which was a big deal.

00:37:00.360 It was nice that that kind of toppled

00:37:02.220 the blue check mafia and their monopoly 0.97

00:37:05.340 because a lot of times on Twitter,

00:37:07.320 you could talk to people.

00:37:09.140 You could even make fun of people,

00:37:10.560 insult people all day long.

00:37:12.140 But if a blue check got involved,

00:37:13.780 if someone was in there

00:37:14.600 and they said something to a blue check

00:37:16.460 that didn't like,

00:37:17.240 all of a sudden that person would get banned.

00:37:18.820 Now the blue check could say whatever they wanted

00:37:20.600 and they weren't going to get in trouble

00:37:21.620 because they were regime approved.

00:37:23.280 But if you were harassing a blue check,

00:37:25.740 then you could get in trouble.

00:37:26.720 So that whole system got blown up by Elon

00:37:29.020 and his creation of kind of the subscription service.

00:37:32.540 Now subscription service is obviously a big deal for Twitter

00:37:35.620 because it brings in a lot of revenue

00:37:37.340 that didn't exist before.

00:37:38.840 The site was pretty much 100% free to use prior to this.

00:37:42.220 And so the invention of the blue check

00:37:44.040 that could just be purchased

00:37:46.040 brought in a large amount of money to the website.

00:37:50.040 On top of that,

00:37:51.060 now we also have this monetization model.

00:37:54.680 At first, you could just tip people.

00:37:56.060 Now you can subscribe to people

00:37:58.640 and then kind of give them a little bit of extra money

00:38:01.180 every month for some bonus content.

00:38:03.900 And then on top of that,

00:38:05.320 you also have the ability to make money from advertisers.

00:38:09.800 Now the last one is the most interesting one

00:38:12.580 because again,

00:38:13.460 those big numbers start rolling into people's bank accounts

00:38:16.000 and people get excited

00:38:16.940 and they want to get monetized and all these things.

00:38:19.480 Well, there's a couple of different problems with that.

00:38:21.880 Obviously, if you are an anon, 0.83

00:38:24.060 if you're somebody who's using a pseudonym

00:38:26.300 on the internet

00:38:28.140 and you want to get some of that cash,

00:38:30.480 well, you're basically going to have to dox yourself

00:38:32.300 to Twitter.

00:38:32.840 You're going to have to give them

00:38:33.740 a lot of personal information.

00:38:35.100 In fact, you already probably have to do that

00:38:36.760 if you have subscribed to Twitter in the first place.

00:38:40.260 And so these blue check sales

00:38:43.060 and these payouts,

00:38:45.940 they encourage people to basically make themselves known

00:38:48.560 at least to Twitter if to nobody else,

00:38:50.840 which is a lot of extra information

00:38:52.900 that Twitter gets to gain.

00:38:54.240 That's a lot of control that they get to have.

00:38:56.340 Another thing that gets to happen

00:38:57.740 with the monetization thing

00:38:59.660 is now Elon's been explaining that,

00:39:02.080 well, we're really marking people safe

00:39:04.060 for advertisement,

00:39:05.980 which means if someone is running advertisements

00:39:07.920 and they don't want their stuff to pop up

00:39:11.020 next to controversial political opinions or something,

00:39:13.500 they can just click the kind of the safe thing

00:39:16.360 when they do their advertisement

00:39:17.480 and only appear on accounts

00:39:20.200 that have been vetted as safe,

00:39:21.600 which means if you have any opinions

00:39:23.280 that aren't created

00:39:24.400 and completely owned by the New York Times

00:39:26.640 and Harvard and NPR or something,

00:39:29.600 then you probably won't be safe.

00:39:31.520 And the further away you get

00:39:33.260 from those kind of regime-approved sources

00:39:36.380 of legitimacy,

00:39:38.140 the more likely you are to be not ad-friendly.

00:39:41.560 So people who are hoping to make a living

00:39:43.600 off of Twitter

00:39:44.440 or hoping to make a decent side income

00:39:46.360 by kind of posting this stuff

00:39:47.980 basically need to post very safely.

00:39:50.540 They need to be pretty innocuous,

00:39:52.220 which means you kind of have this YouTube effect, right?

00:39:55.240 That where YouTube disincentivizes people

00:39:57.820 from having any kind of edgy opinions

00:39:59.640 or different opinions,

00:40:00.920 not discussing controversial topics,

00:40:02.460 everything just maybe needs to be really safe.

00:40:05.300 I mean, do you really want to talk

00:40:06.380 about these controversial political things

00:40:08.100 when you could just make money

00:40:09.160 talking about video games?

00:40:10.920 And so it disincentivizes certain types of content,

00:40:13.480 pushes other types of content.

00:40:15.140 It also incentivizes accounts

00:40:17.920 that care about this thing

00:40:19.000 to kind of post empty and meaningless things.

00:40:21.700 Obviously, we've already talked about

00:40:22.920 how memes and stuff are a good way

00:40:24.860 to drive your engagement no matter what,

00:40:27.560 but there is again a line, right?

00:40:29.300 Whether you want to use that constantly

00:40:31.340 is just the only way of communication

00:40:32.800 or if you just want to use that to boost things

00:40:34.860 so that you can then talk about more important stuff

00:40:37.040 or different stuff.

00:40:38.640 But really, this just encourages people

00:40:41.020 to either create controversy

00:40:42.540 or create safety, right?

00:40:44.300 Either you just want to jack up your numbers

00:40:45.820 by getting tons and tons of views

00:40:47.740 on all your posts

00:40:48.420 by being really controversial

00:40:50.480 or posting,

00:40:51.340 I should say controversial in the safe way, right?

00:40:54.160 Not controversial

00:40:54.900 because you have controversial political opinions,

00:40:57.560 controversial

00:40:57.820 because you're starting drama with somebody

00:40:59.980 or you're getting a lot of eyeballs on you

00:41:03.040 because you got some big account

00:41:05.480 to fire back

00:41:07.320 and get into some kind of drama with you about it.

00:41:10.220 That kind of stuff gets boosted.

00:41:12.260 Obviously, just kind of mindless content gets boosted,

00:41:14.680 stuff that'll get shared regularly.

00:41:16.480 Those things will get you a lot of money.

00:41:18.460 And so that definitely shapes

00:41:19.720 the way that the platform is going.

00:41:21.640 Obviously, another big change

00:41:23.960 that has been made is the name.

00:41:25.760 It's not technically Twitter,

00:41:27.120 even though I'm calling it Twitter.

00:41:28.600 Technically, it's X.

00:41:29.660 I'm just going to keep calling it Twitter

00:41:30.820 because it feels weird to call it X.

00:41:33.620 But another big thing Elon is doing,

00:41:35.380 he wants to make this the everything platform, right?

00:41:38.400 That's a big idea of his.

00:41:39.900 This is the everything platform.

00:41:41.260 So he wants this to be a video streaming service.

00:41:43.780 That's part of the monetization thing.

00:41:45.580 He wants this to be the place

00:41:46.560 where you post all of your long form content.

00:41:49.740 You know, that's why Substack became a problem.

00:41:52.240 And so he really wants to focus

00:41:53.760 on keeping people on the website.

00:41:56.060 He wants to turn Twitter into this hub of social media

00:42:01.140 where no one leaves to go look anywhere else.

00:42:04.120 Well, that's kind of a problem

00:42:05.420 because like for me,

00:42:06.400 the original reason I came on Twitter

00:42:08.100 is that's where you shared your stuff

00:42:09.880 so people would go watch other stuff, right?

00:42:12.120 So I didn't get onto Twitter

00:42:13.340 to become good at Twitter,

00:42:15.800 become, you know, big on Twitter.

00:42:17.580 I went onto Twitter to share my YouTube stuff

00:42:20.020 and then eventually my Substack stuff

00:42:21.940 and now the podcast and everything.

00:42:24.080 But I use that to drive engagement

00:42:26.120 to other outlets, to other platforms.

00:42:28.960 Now, obviously the idea is,

00:42:30.600 well, if you can monetize Twitter,

00:42:31.780 then you don't need to drive people to other platforms.

00:42:33.900 You can, everything can just stay here.

00:42:35.680 But of course,

00:42:36.260 if we already have this ad safe scenario,

00:42:39.120 if we already have this scenario

00:42:41.120 where they're already picking winners and losers

00:42:43.680 and restricting income and the bandwidth

00:42:46.200 and visibility of people

00:42:48.680 just because they're not marked advertiser safe,

00:42:52.940 that's only going to get worse.

00:42:54.960 That's only going to become more of a problem

00:42:57.260 as time goes on

00:42:59.040 and as you get focused on this platform

00:43:01.280 to the exclusion of others.

00:43:03.080 So on the podcast,

00:43:04.140 you can say what you want to say

00:43:05.980 because, well, you've got advertisers,

00:43:08.300 you're doing these certain live reads

00:43:10.220 and things or whatever.

00:43:11.520 You have people donating,

00:43:12.920 you have alternative ways

00:43:14.320 that aren't just the Twitter approved way

00:43:16.800 to generate income.

00:43:18.900 But if everything has to be Twitter safe all the time,

00:43:21.400 if everything has to make sure

00:43:22.940 that it can fit into the Twitter paradigm

00:43:24.720 when it comes to monetization,

00:43:26.960 that means you're going to start censoring yourself

00:43:29.200 on those other platforms as well.

00:43:30.800 So Twitter is already making it hard

00:43:33.080 to link things like Substack

00:43:34.680 and other stuff onto their platform.

00:43:37.000 I understand a lot of people say,

00:43:38.300 oh, well, these are just competitors.

00:43:39.760 So of course they would do that.

00:43:41.260 That's not their purpose.

00:43:42.320 Well, that's fine,

00:43:43.180 but that's why a lot of people

00:43:44.020 got on here in the first place.

00:43:45.120 Again, one of the reasons

00:43:46.620 that Twitter had the very specific user base

00:43:49.480 that it did,

00:43:50.060 it had the creatives,

00:43:51.420 had the opinion shapers,

00:43:53.040 it had all these kind of people

00:43:54.940 was because they could share their content.

00:43:57.920 It was a good place to share the content

00:43:59.960 and have it go viral.

00:44:01.440 But if Twitter is a place

00:44:02.580 where it's very hard to share a content,

00:44:04.900 then you have less and less reason

00:44:06.380 to kind of come back.

00:44:07.460 Now, obviously there's still plenty of people

00:44:08.980 on Twitter.

00:44:09.900 I'm on Twitter.

00:44:10.560 So I'm not saying this is tank them

00:44:11.980 or anything.

00:44:12.720 Hasn't done so yet.

00:44:13.680 But I'm just saying long term,

00:44:15.680 the nature of the platform could change

00:44:17.880 as Elon tries to make this

00:44:20.020 one holistic experience

00:44:22.100 where no one ever leaves the platform

00:44:24.400 as opposed to something

00:44:25.880 that is used by content creators,

00:44:29.160 celebrities, opinion shapers,

00:44:31.140 other people to drive those audiences

00:44:33.040 to their other platforms.

00:44:34.940 So it really does lend this idea

00:44:38.040 that Elon is hoping to shape

00:44:40.400 and control a lot of this stuff.

00:44:41.840 Now, interestingly, a day or two ago,

00:44:44.720 Elon posted something to the effect

00:44:46.400 of Twitter as the human hive mind

00:44:48.760 or Twitter as the human

00:44:50.080 collective unconsciousness.

00:44:52.340 That's something that sounds like a joke,

00:44:54.860 but I don't know if it's a joke.

00:44:56.720 I feel like that is something

00:44:58.160 that Elon is trying to do,

00:45:00.060 turn Twitter into this kind

00:45:02.200 of processing filter

00:45:03.260 for all of human entertainment

00:45:05.500 and knowledge and content

00:45:06.920 and all these things.

00:45:07.920 Maybe too ambitious,

00:45:09.100 maybe something that won't happen

00:45:10.260 at the end,

00:45:11.080 but it does feel like a goal that he has.

00:45:14.080 And so that's definitely a thing

00:45:16.020 to keep an eye on

00:45:17.040 as to where the platform is going.

00:45:19.320 It was something that started

00:45:20.700 as a content sharing place,

00:45:22.340 a place to go viral,

00:45:23.260 a place to kind of spar

00:45:24.880 and all these things.

00:45:26.260 But if people are focused

00:45:27.280 on ad friendliness,

00:45:28.780 ad safety,

00:45:29.880 if they're here

00:45:30.620 because they need monetization,

00:45:32.600 because he can no longer

00:45:33.920 drive traffic to other platforms,

00:45:35.840 that could very much alter

00:45:37.640 the way that people interact.

00:45:39.000 And finally,

00:45:39.880 Elon has already been clear

00:45:41.420 multiple times.

00:45:42.540 He does not like internet anonymity.

00:45:44.640 He does not think it's a good thing.

00:45:46.380 He is against it.

00:45:47.660 And so his efforts to collect

00:45:49.420 a lot of information

00:45:50.520 through subscriptions

00:45:51.280 and monetization on anons

00:45:53.620 really makes you think

00:45:54.920 that that's probably something else

00:45:56.140 he's eventually going to try

00:45:57.340 to get rid of one way or another,

00:45:58.940 which is not something

00:46:00.160 that is great.

00:46:01.080 But it does seem

00:46:02.260 with direction

00:46:02.760 he'll probably go

00:46:03.900 once he's kind of

00:46:05.160 got enough power

00:46:06.200 to do that.

00:46:07.440 All that said, guys,

00:46:08.460 that's kind of what

00:46:09.280 I wanted to cover on Twitter.

00:46:11.100 Just give you an idea

00:46:12.020 of how to think about Twitter,

00:46:13.940 what it is,

00:46:14.940 some ways you might be

00:46:15.860 successful on it

00:46:16.600 if you want to,

00:46:17.820 and then where I thought

00:46:18.920 Twitter was going.

00:46:20.040 If you enjoyed the video,

00:46:21.060 of course,

00:46:21.540 please make sure

00:46:22.060 that you go ahead

00:46:22.520 and subscribe to the channel.

00:46:23.980 And if you'd like

00:46:24.500 to get these broadcasts

00:46:25.600 as podcasts,

00:46:26.520 make sure that you check out

00:46:27.540 The Oren McIntyre Show

00:46:28.600 on your favorite podcast platform.

00:46:30.840 Thanks for coming by, guys.

00:46:31.960 And as always,

00:46:32.940 I'll talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - August 24, 2023

How to Think About Twitter ｜ 8⧸24⧸23

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