Taking Time Off From Rockets to Have Fun on Social Media

Published in

RTA902 (Social Media)

8 min readApr 19, 2018

An example of a usual daily tweet from Musk’s Twitter account

There is a fair few people in the world who can recognize the name Elon Musk, many of whom would associate him as the business magnate, investor, and engineer, who co-founded SpaceX, Tesla, Inc., and the infrastructure firm known as The Boring Company which functions as both an underground tunnel developer and a maker of flamethrowers (sorry, “not a” flamethrower). Of course, it is not just firearms and rockets that Elon Musk provides to the world, but also an active social media presence that, despite the serious work it displays, maintains Musk’s quirky and entertaining personality which not only keeps an audience engaged but also encourages participation with what he posts. Whether it be sarcastic comments over Twitter or a photo of a main body tool for the BFR interplanetary spaceship on Instagram, Musk knows how to maintain an active and participating audience on social media platforms. Musk utilizes social media as a means of building value for his brands, “and why not?” there can be no better way to announce the latest developments than mediums that is short, instant, and allows one to gauge public reaction to a product or new development (Team YS, 2018).

Before diving deep into what Musk is doing right on social media we have to ask ourselves, “what is exactly is he doing right?”. Well, when he is departed from working on a Falcon 9 rocket booster he is tweeting posts such as the one below:

Despite the fact this might be seen as a fairly unconventional tweet for someone who has a “fairly” serious job, it is clear that Elon Musk does not want to simply just cater to his social media feeds and present simply photos and details of latest inventions and updates. He wants to engage, he wants to entertain.

Of course it doesn’t simply end with funny tweets, Musk also tries to associate himself with brands/people/organizations that relate well to him but more importantly relate well to his social media followers. They see this connection that they relate to and can now affiliate that same connection with Musk which allows him to continue building brand value over the platform.

For example, this photo with Musk and Justin Roiland, the creator and voice-actor behind Rick and Morty, connects well with followers who enjoy Roiland’s work which positively affects Musk’s brand. The positive association they have with Roiland’s work is now attached with the Musk.

Musk posing in his office with Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland

The ultimate goal on social media for a business leader is about being able to connect with your audience, engaging and responding to commentary from consumers on your platforms which generates not only respect from your followers but also allows them to recognise your authenticity and approachability (Team YS, 2018).

Of course, there’s a multitude of reasons why Musk is so successful with his social media activity. He embraces ridiculousness, he’s self aware about his status, he brings his followers close to his work, he engages with his followers, and he is aware of what people are talking about (Zipkin, 2018). These tactics in his social media align with the characteristics of an influencer. These characteristics include having a level connectivity, having direct access to followers, sharing photos that are seen as truth, and an affiliative bond that allows a follower to feel more likely to replicate the influencer and their actions (Khan, 2018). It’s clear that he is both willing and able to engage with his followers on a personal level that creates a strong sense of connection for them, as seen with this tweet below:

A Twitter comment conversation between Musk and his followers

It is quite clear that Elon Musk is a social media influencer. However, rather than being an influencer sought out by a brand to work directly with a targeted audience, Elon Musk has become his own influencer for his own brands, becoming a CEO that not only has control within the brand people trust but is also the voice that those people used to connect with the brand.

As a CEO, this is a highly important asset. We are currently now in a point of time where the presence of a CEO’s profile cannot simply only be on LinkedIn, but has to be over multiple social media platforms for it not only lets people know who is behind the wheel of a company, it also leads to the potential of earning revenue (Versai, 2017). A social media presence builds trust, which leads to communication and a strong connection, which in turn allows for the possibility of a follower getting their information about you from yourself rather than from someone else. With trust developed between you and a follower, social media platforms can become helpful when you need to clear air about news reported by the media and posting a status about that issue from your end is a beneficial form of communication with your followers (Versai, 2017). This is a valuable asset that is of great importance to a CEO.

Now to see if his tactics are actually succeeding, and the answer is… of course they are, he’s hit bullseye on every platform. Time to get analytical. As of April 18, 2018, Musk has amassed about 21.3 million followers on Twitter and about 7.2 million followers on Instagram, a “fair few” which I think we can all agree on. When it comes to how well this supports his brands, we can look at Tesla, Inc., Musk’s company which specializes in electric vehicles and energy storage. As a company that is only 15 years old and has a production output of 100 times fewer than other competitors, Tesla outperforms brands such as Ford and Volkswagen in social media visibility (Sunley, 2018). Back in the February of 2018, Tesla accounted for 25% of all conversations about electric cars on social media, BMW was in second place at 10%, with Toyota, the world’s biggest electric car maker, trailed behind in third at 6% (Sunley, 2018).

Regardless of their technology, their advertising, or brand history, BMW’s and Toyota’s inability to match Tesla and Musk’s effective social activity makes Tesla the brand most closely associated with electric cars and autonomous vehicles on global social media while they fall behind with online presence.

Obviously, it would not be right to talk about Musk’s prowess in social media without discussing the absolutely amazing and highly dangerous flamethrower sale done by The Boring Company. Following the success of Musk’s sale of 50,000 The Boring Company baseball caps at $20 a piece, the company decided to bring in some more revenue in by selling some flamethrowers, because why not? To advertise these lovely devices, Musk took to social media, selling the flamethrowers through jokes, references, and updates on the legal battles they were having with United States government over the sales. In under a week he had attracted a third of a million likes and around 90,000 retweets which all promoted his private tunnel building and infrastructure initiative The Boring Company (Sunley, 2018). Twitter posts included promoting the flamethrower by discussing the looming terror of zombies and discussing how Musk had to change the product name from ‘flamethrower’ to ‘not a flamethrower’.

However, despite the name change, the flamethrowers still faced heavy criticism from US politicians and the American Home Office who called it a dangerous weapon being sold online. Democrat politician Miguel Santiago attempted to block the sale of them, saying “NOT FUNNY. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.”, despite the fact that a Boring Company spokesperson told CNET that the product is “safer than what you can buy right now off-the-shelf on Amazon to destroy weeds” (Gibbs, 2018). After all the controversy and all the tweets, the sale of the flamethrowers reached the goal of 20,000 units which in turn achieved revenues for the company of $10 million dollars USD (Gibbs, 2018). By the end of the campaign, The Boring Company had not only achieved revenues but had put itself in the centre of attention of social media thanks to the efforts and tactics of social media.

The tech billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk has been able to utilize social media as a tool to cover a variety of different tasks. Whether it be promotions for a brand or maintaining his image as an influence, Musk has succeeded with each tactic he performs. He successfully connects with his followers on a personal level. He embraces ridiculousness and humour rather than trying to maintain a serious persona that is less personal with a follower. He’s self aware with what is going on in social media platforms and is willing to interact with it. He takes his followers close to the action of what he is doing, keeping very few secrets between people and his brands. Finally, and most importantly, Musk engages with his followers, commenting back, updating them with information, where he is not afraid to talk about a criticism or discuss potential sequels to the Half-Life video game franchise. For those of us who aspire to be a social media influencer, we can all take a page from the tactic book by Elon Musk. And remember what Musk says, “the first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur”.

Sources:

https://yourstory.com/2018/01/elon-musk-social-media-brand-value-creation/

https://www.thehrdigest.com/elon-musk-embraces-social-media-share-visions/