{"id":43426,"date":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/can-comeback-ceo-jack-dorsey-turn-twitter-around-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:28:29","slug":"can-comeback-ceo-jack-dorsey-turn-twitter-around-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/can-comeback-ceo-jack-dorsey-turn-twitter-around-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Can comeback CEO Jack Dorsey turn Twitter around? – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Investors are still unsure about Twitter\u2019s prospects. The tech company\u2019s stock dropped by 10% after reporting low user growth in its third quarter earnings report, despite seeing revenue grow by 58% compared to 2014.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The firm added just 3m new users since June \u2013 paling in comparison to rival Instagram, which saw users grow by 100m to reach 400m users in the past nine months alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Delivering on the equation of revenue and user growth is no mean feat \u2013 and the firm\u2019s new CEO Jack Dorsey has a tough job on his hands. But he appears to know at least what it takes to boost the company\u2019s popularity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The comeback kid<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Comebacks might be frequent in the world of sports and music, but not so in the world of CEOs. Dorsey is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs in returning to the company he co-founded to help turn its fortunes around. Dorsey helped launch Twitter in 2006 and was its first CEO. But he was replaced by Evan Williams in 2008, another co-founder of the company. Dorsey went on to form Square Inc, a business platform for card payments on mobiles in 2009 and remains its chief executive \u2013 something that he has been criticised for<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He returned as interim CEO in July 2015 and the job was made permanent in October 2015. His predecessor, Dick Costolo, spoke of the pressures involved in running a public company \u2013 particularly, dealing with the short-term thinking fuelled by stock market expectations. Satisfying short-term expectations in a firm that also needs to build a long-term vision is now the battle Dorsey must fight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When he first took back the reins, Dorsey laid out a vision to simplify Twitter\u2019s product offering \u2013 to make it easier to understand and more approachable to people. He said it would focus on \u201cbig bets across Twitter, Periscope and Vine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The question is if and when this simplification will begin to deliver. The number of monthly active members did actually rise 11% year-over-year to 320m and saw a slight rise from 316m in the previous quarter. But more work needs to be done \u2013 and at a higher tempo. Making Twitter easier to use is the key challenge the company faces to increase its user base.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Q3 revenue of US$569m points to a rise of 58% year-on-year, US$9m above its forecast range. Of this revenue about 90% came from advertising (US$513m, an increase of 60% year-on-year). And an impressive 86% of the total advertising revenue was mobile-based. The forecast range for Q4 is US$695m to US$710m. Yet, in the metric of monthly active users, which is often used by investors to judge the long-term prospects of social media firms (as it helps attract even more advertising revenue), Twitter is struggling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Twitter\u2019s moment<\/b><\/p>\n


<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

Three areas encapsulate what is happening at Twitter at the moment: Twitter\u2019s new Moments feature, videos and the way it targets small and medium-sized businesses. Moments is a new product that organises tweets, pictures and video around live events that users can choose to follow. It features the best stories happening on Twitter, prepared by Twitter and select partners.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to Dorsey, Moments represents a fundamental shift in Twitter\u2019s thinking \u2013 organising content by topic instead of timing, where users follow topics live instead of accounts. This sums up the current efforts to make Twitter easier to understand for both users and advertisers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In an effort to boost its popularity, Twitter aired its first TV advertisement to showcase Moments during the World Series Baseball tournament. The ad created a backlash from some Twitter users, however, who found it complicated and were unsure of the message it was trying to convey. This vividly shows the dual challenge Twitter has of engaging both new users through a simplified interface and current ones who want extra functionality from the service it already provides.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n