One wonders if The Beatles were being prophetic when singing the following lines from Norwegian Wood:
And when I awoke I was alone
This bird had flown
So I lit a fire
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?
To be fair, I am not sure what wood Elon Musk is using to burn down Twitter's brand, but for someone who's been using the service since it began, snaring the username @stevedavis along the way, it does feel lonely to note the bird has flown.
At the same time, it is not surprising.
Everything about social media is transitory, from the diminishing dopamine hits triggered by likes and shares, to the nonchalant way Facebook shuttered thousands of Business Pages in 2021 as part of its fight with the government over a new media code.
This latest upheaval of a social media stalwart should be considered as natural as the forging of different land and sea masses throughout the history of this planet.
Your website is still the safest nest
The key thing to remember amid the social chatter about Elon's rebranding of Twitter as X, is that your website is still where your digital marketing nest egg sits.
Provided you keep paying your webhosting fees and your domain name renewals, it is very unlikely that your nest will be upturned by a billionaire landlord.
And even though Google is doing its best to hold more and more search traffic on its own pages (consider how often a search results page shows just the snippet of information you need, removing the need to click through to the author's site), your website is still a powerful, single source of truth about all things "you".
Closely connected to your website is your collection of blogs and your invitation for people to join your mailing list, should you be committed to sharing helpful insights from your field, thus maintaining your effective tribe of customers, would-be customers, and influencers within an arm's length.
To be sure, your social media channels will be useful for sharing your blog-ish nuggets and facilitating your engagement with the marketplace, but your website is the home fire that can maintain glowing, even while you search for the Norwegian Wood of the latest social frenzy.
Hold your strategy firmly but your tactics loosely
This all means that provided the marketplace itself remains aligned with your expectations, your strategy for building your brand can remain constant, even though you might need to gather the loose threads of new social media channels while cutting others loose.
All of this has been put into perspective for me, upon my recent reading of Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything. This book charts and the rise and fall of theories, institutions, and peoples, over the course of history.
As disheartened Twitter die-hards migrate to other locations, where they flock is yet to be seen. The only thing guaranteed is they'll be wise not to invest too heavily in their new social roost.
PS Thank goodness Elon didn't think his new brand was three times better than Twitter. Imagine the even more hilarious results!
