Golf Twitter has long been shaped by its medium, how will the community respond to Musk's purchase of the platform?
"The medium is the message" - Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian Philospher who worked in the field of media theory. In the 1960s he coined the phrase "the medium is the message," meaning that the way message is perceived is influenced by the medium that carries it.
This idea is really evident in the current social media landscape.
When you work in digital content, you're constantly evaluating the shifting landscape made up by the various social media networks. There is so much to think about as you look to optimize and platform content for your channels. It's no secret that what works on Facebook, doesn't necessarily work on Instagram, even through the latter is owned by the former. And this is to say nothing of the way that content creators and social media managers have to adapt to accomodate and keep pace with emerging platforms and trends.
Consider that when TikTok began gaining traction, there wasn't another mainstream platform doing vertical (9:16) video as a primary format. Just a few years later, the vertical format is everywhere. Reels and Shorts are all a product - at least in part - of the success of TikTok.
So how will the landscape change with the recent shakeup at Twitter? And how specifically, will golf twitter be affected? How will the changes happening inside the medium affect the messages and the way those messages are perceived?
All good questions.
While I don't have a crystal ball to see into the future, I think we can speculate a little on how golf twitter will change in the coming months.
Will the golf twitter community abandon the platform?
According to the MIT Technology Review, Twitter lost over one million MAUs (monthly active users) just one week after his purchase was finalized. That number represents less than a half a percent of the social media company's subscriber base, but also those users have not just left, in large part they've migrated to smaller platforms.
The golf community has been active on twitter for a long time, really since Stewart Cink became the first player to actively engage fans there in 2009. Should we brace ourselves for a mass migration to tumblr? Another platform? Golf Mastadon just doesn't have the same ring to it.
At the moment, I don't think this is a real concern. Twitter is going through turmoil right now, but unless the company folds, the golf community on the platform is so well established, it's hard to see a mass migration happening.
That said, if a platform like Mastadon can capitalize on the dysfunction happening right now at Twitter, it's not impossible that the community could move.
What effect will the new "verified" system have on the community?
One major changed that's happening on Twitter is the blue check mark that has long signified "verified" users. This was supposed to be a symbol that conveyed a sense of authority, but it never really achieved that aim. Elon Musk is attempting to solve this problem by creating additional identifiers to signify "official" content.
Musk launched a new paid "verification" system, that allowed any user to get the blue check mark for an $8/month fee. Unsurprisingly, scammers and impersonators quickly took advantage and the program was halted. A revised program is set to roll out this week that will identify official government accounts with a grey check, and company accounts with a gold check.
It's hard to predict how this change will play out. One thing is certain though, there are many "blue check verified" users on golf twitter, and it's unlikely that most of them will pony up the $96/year to have a blue check appended next to their twitter handle.
Will those voices be drowned out then? Will they still be seen as authorities on what's happening in the game? How will the "leadership" in the community change? How will the tone change?
What effect will advertisers leaving the platform have?
Advertisers leaving could be a huge change. Some of the biggest voices on golf twitter rely on sponsored content to make the platform a revenue-generator. Most of these types of sponsored content deals are done without twitter being in the middle, however, if advertisers don't want to be one twitter it's safe to assume they don't want to sponsor content distributed there.
There are more reasons for brands and personalities to be on twitter than to directly make money (brand exposure and reach, creating and controlling narratives, being accessible to customers, etc.), but the advantages of being on twitter are lessened when the ability to monetize content is put in jeopardy.
This could drastically reduce those voices in the conversations about the game.
That is nothing to say about the more wholistic challenges facing twitter as advertisers opt out.
As of November 21st, half of Twitter's top 10 advertisers had stopped advertising on the platform. Those advertisers had been spending an average of $2.3 Million per day. Musk has been feverishly trying to offset those losses with layoffs, but the reality is that, although we've seen little really change on the user front in terms of operability, the platform is fighting for its survival at the moment.
It's clear though that even if Twitter survives this volatile period, it's unlikely to be the same platform for its users, and communities like the golf twitter community, will suffer.
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