Elon Musk hosted a Twitter Space to address advertisers

Billionaire and Twitter’s new Chief Twit, Elon Musk, took to a new approach to address concerns about brand safety and ad relevancy on the platform. He hosted Twitter Space, a live audio broadcast feature of the micro-blogging site. 114,000 listeners tuned in, which included brands like Audi, Target, Jordan, Adidas, Honda, and several others. He was joined by Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity, who said that the company would uphold its policies against harmful content.

Musk admitted if a brand "Is advertising they do not want super negative information right next to their ad, or content that may be inappropriate. So we are going to work hard to make sure that there is not bad stuff right next to an ad, which really doesn’t serve anyone any good,” he added.

Musk repeated many of the points he had been making the time he was bidding to buy Twitter. He completed the $44 billion buyout of the social media firm to take it private in October. “We really want to be, as I’ve mentioned before publicly, sort of the digital town square, where that is as inclusive as possible… Like, can we get 80 percent of humanity on Twitter, and talking, and maybe, ideally, in a positive way?” He further informed brands about his $8 subscription plan, which includes verification. He said this will solve a lot of concerns for marketers. “If someone tries to impersonate a brand, their account will be suspended and we will keep their $8.” Brands aren't convinced with this approach. "There's a big difference between freedom of speech and freedom of reach," he said, stating that Twitter will work to limit the visibility of hateful content.

According to a CNBC report, compared with larger rivals Facebook and Google, Twitter never managed to develop an online ad business that matched the scale of its influence in popular culture and society at large. Twitter has lost money in six of the eight years since its IPO. Its revenue in 2021 reached $5 billion, while Facebook generated sales of $118 billion and Google parent Alphabet recorded $257 billion in revenue. 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising.

In India, too, marketers are concerned about how the new leadership will pan out for advertising on the platform. The company fired 90 percent of its staff in India as a part of its global reductions plans. There were about 200 people in Twitter India's team, and the cuts left it with just about a dozen staff, according to multiple reports.

A Moneycontrol report indicated that advertisers say while Indians use Twitter a lot, Indian marketers don’t pay to be on Twitter and that a brand can strike a deal to be on Twitter for an entire year for about Rs 8 lakh, whereas a top content creator for a post on Instagram charges lakhs of rupees.

The average cost for a promoted ad on Twitter ranges between $0.25 and $2 whereas follower ads are about $2 to $4 per follow. Twitter is not a primary platform to advertise while platforms like Google, Meta, and Snapchat have dominated the market with a larger user base in India.