General Motors has suspended its advertising on Twitter because of the direction Twitter is taking under Elon Musk. GM made the move to evaluate how effective advertising on this platform will be in the future and was not influenced by anything that has been happening recently with Musk. The company does not have a specific time frame for when ads should be running again but expects to soon make a decision either way.
While GM is trying to figure out how exactly it wants to proceed with advertising, it refuses to give up its stake in social media altogether and does plan on buying more traditional marketing avenues. GM has already made a number of other moves to assist in the testing of its new direction. In February, GM began to run advertisements on Snapchat and decided to purchase the website Newsweek. Since then, it has purchased The Dodo (which is now defunct) and launched a small ad campaign on Tumblr.
The recent acquisition of Newsweek is just one more way in which the automaker is trying to help itself in making advertising decisions as it deals with this shift in its own business. This also adds another piece to the ever-growing list of digital media companies that have been acquired by automakers recently.
GM is the latest of those car companies that have decided to take a more active role in digital media. Last year, Volkswagen bought the car sharing service, Scooter. Tesla has purchased dozens of companies related to car technology and Ford has made significant investments in Uber and others as well. Toyota was also an early investor in Blab and other social media sites but chose not to own them outright.
While some automakers are looking to buy outside of the traditional advertising arena, some are trying new ways to advertise including partnering with existing brands or celebrities. Recently some Tesla owners have been able to use their cars on a ride-sharing service called Fluid Carpool which is sponsored by MasterCard.
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