File photo
Shannon Kinney
Updated: August 3, 2023
'What's next, TeslaX?': Mainers give mixed reviews to Elon Musk's Twitter rebranding
Photo / Courtesy Adobe Stock
The blue Twitter bird on the social media platform has flown the coop, replaced by the new "X" logo, shown here,
Days after Elon Musk ousted Twitter's blue bird icon from the social media universe in favor of the letter “X," Maine business and marketing executives are reacting to the change with mixed emotions.
“Can’t the guy just focus on Tesla and SpaceX?” E2Tech’s former executive director, Marty Grohman, said of the man who bought the social media platform last year for $44 billion. “What’s next, TeslaX?” said Grohman, who tweets from Biddeford.
Musk, a business magnate and investor with an estimated net worth of $239 billion, runs electric car maker Tesla Inc. and is the founder, CEO and chief technology officer of SpaceX, a spacecraft manufacturer, launch service provider and satellite communications company headquartered in California.
Musk's 'shock and awe'
In Maine, marketing experts give mostly negative reviews to the rebranded Twitter.
“I was in the first few hundred users of Twitter upon its launch and have been sad to see some of these changes,” said Shannon Kinney, founder and client success officer of Dream Local Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Thomaston.
“I’ll miss the Twitter bird and Twitter brand, and don't feel like X will resonate,” she added. “I also think taking away the blue check for verified accounts was a shame … In social media, we have to be ready for constant change, but it will always be Twitter to me.”
Meredith Strang Burgess, CEO of Falmouth-based Burgess Marketing & Advertising, is also not a fan of Twitter’s new visual identity.
"I think the abrupt brand change from the name Twitter with a blue bird mark to X with a stylized X, makes no logical sense from a user and image perspective,” she said.
“Clearly it was done to draw a clear and wide red line in the sand that things will be different from here forward,” she added. "From that standpoint, Musk has achieved his goal of 'shock and awe.'"
More shocked than awed is Nancy Marshall, founder and CEO Augusta-based Marshall Communications and host of the PR Maven podcast.
“A strong brand resonates with its audience in both their hearts and their minds, so it should make people feel connected, spiritually and mentally,” she said. “I personally do not connect on either level with this new logo,” which she views as somewhat dark and negative.
“For example, if you X something out, that typically means you’re crossing it off. Especially having the X so dark, it is foreboding and indicative of a negative future in my mind."
Still on Twitter to converse with connections, Marshall noted that “going from the happy bluebird to the dark and foreboding X does not feel bright and promising for the future."
File photo / Tim Greenway
Keith Luke, a.k.a. @GriffinClubMerv on Twitter.
Keith Luke, Augusta’s economic development director tweeting as @GriffinClubMerv, also likes Twitter for dialogue no matter what the branding.
“We’re learning now just how ‘durable’ a product that Twitter or X is,” he said. “In spite of all the changes and Musk-related background noise, it’s still the place that I turn to when I want to engage in dialog.”
Luke also said that while he says he was able to quickly establish a large following on the upstart Threads messaging platform, a rival developed by Meta, he finds that it lacks Twitter’s interaction.
“Threads is a place for the average user to make a statement, while Twitter/X remains the place for the average user to engage in a dialog,” he said.
Sea Dogs in ‘X’-tra innings
While some Maine businesses such as food retailer Hannaford are no longer active on Twitter, the Portland Sea Dogs baseball team is sticking around for "X"-tra innings.
The team, on Twitter for 15 years, has 50,000 followers on the platform, while mascot Slugger is followed by 4,324 fans.
“As long as Twitter remains a viable tool for us to engage with our fans and the media, what their logo is will not affect our decision to utilize the platform,” said Chris Cameron, the team’s vice president for communications and fan engagement.
The team tweeted more than a dozen times on Wednesday alone, including a post showcasing Slugger's visit to the South Portland Boys and Girls Club.
Slugger appeared to be offline for the day as he gets ready to head to Indiana later this month for his induction into the Mascot Hall of Fame.
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