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Indeed he does. Musk’s 80.5 million Twitter followers make him one of the most popular figures on the platform, rivaling pop stars like Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga. But his prolific tweeting sometimes gets him into trouble when, for instance, he uses it to promote his business ventures, rally Tesla loyalists, question pandemic measures and pick fights with those with whom he disagrees.

In one famous example, Musk apologized to a British cave explorer who alleged the Tesla CEO had branded him a pedophile by referring to him as “pedo guy” in an angry — and subsequently deleted — tweet. The explorer filed a defamation suit, although a Los Angeles jury later cleared Musk.

He's also been locked in a long-running dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his Twitter activity. Musk and Tesla in 2018 agreed to pay $40 million in civil fines and for Musk to have his tweets approved by a corporate lawyer after he tweeted about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share — which didn't happen but caused Tesla's stock price to jump. His lawyer has contended that the SEC is infringing on Musk's free speech rights.

Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and has made clear that he doesn't think Twitter is living up to free speech principles — an opinion shared by followers of Donald Trump and several right-wing political figures who've had their accounts suspended for violating Twitter content rules.

But what's really driving Musk's Twitter involvement isn't clear. His preoccupations with the service include arguing to make Twitter’s algorithm viewable by the public, widening the availability of “verified” Twitter accounts, and blasting a profile photo initiative involving non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

Musk has also called “crypto spam bots,” which search tweets for cryptocurrency related keywords then pose as customer support to empty user crypto wallets, the “most annoying problem on twitter.”

“We don’t know what his goals are,” said Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University communications professor and an expert on social media. “Maybe Elon Musk secretly wants to blow (Twitter) up ... maybe he wants to destroy it.”

Musk's role as both a board member and Twitter's largest shareholder certainly gives him an outsized voice in the company's future. He's been publicly praised this week by the CEO and other board members, a sign that Twitter leadership is likely to take his ideas seriously.

But he's still just one member of a 12-person board that Twitter says has “an important advisory and feedback role” but no responsibility over day-to-day operations and decisions. That means Musk won't have the authority to add an “edit button” or to restore Donald Trump's suspended account.

“Our policy decisions are not determined by the board or shareholders, and we have no plans to reverse any policy decisions,” said Twitter spokesperson Adrian Zamora.

Several Wall Street analysts said they were encouraged by Musk’s new role at Twitter. “This is a guy that does push for change, that does, I think, refuse to have failure on his resume. A perfect guy you need on the board of directors for them," said CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino. That's true, Zino said, even if ”what exactly his ideas are, who the heck knows.”

Other investors aren't so sure. Meredith Benton, founder of the investment consulting firm Whistle Stop Capital, has been pushing for shareholders at both Twitter and Tesla to back stronger policies affecting workplace harassment and discrimination. She describes Musk's new role as a concerning development for Twitter investors, especially given accusations by California regulators that Tesla has been discriminating against Black employees at its San Francisco Bay Area factory.

“Twitter’s greatest current challenge is to navigate successfully through the societal implications of its platform’s use,” Benton said. "Elon Musk with his air of reckless bravado presents a risk of undermining thoughtful and strategic management of these topics."

There has been executive turnover since co-founder Jack Dorsey's (pictured) departure in November left Twitter with a new CEO, Parag Agrawal, whose initial actions have involved reorganizing divisions. Wall Street analysts had approved of the choice of Agrawal as the new leader, but there have been no major changes to the platform yet. The company has long lagged behind its social media rivals and boasts far fewer users.

The mere fact of linking Musk's high-profile name to Twitter could get people to spend more time on on the platform and help it make more money, Zino said, calling Musk “the most important individual” at Twitter.

You wouldn't know it from his prolific posts, but he does hold several big roles, including CEO and “Technoking" of electric car company Tesla and CEO of the rocket company SpaceX. He is also the founder of The Boring Company, an underground tunnel company, and Neuralink, which wants to plant computer chips in people's brains.

There are many benefits of using social media to grow a business and to craft an online persona that showcases a brand’s values and services. A defined social media strategy can help businesses be more profitable, establish credibility, and gain a strategic edge over the competition. Social media has become a powerful tool in marketing as it’s accessible anytime, anywhere, and is a fun, engaging way to share and collect information.

According to the most recent data from Statista, as of 2021, 82% of the U.S. population has a profile on social media, with the most popular platform being Facebook. In 2021, nearly 92% of U.S. marketers were expected to use social media for marketing purposes.

Planoly consulted research from social media influencers, brand managers, and marketing agencies to compile 10 of the best ways to start building your brand on social media.

There are various strategies for companies and brands to up their social media marketing game. It can be something as simple as taking more time getting to know your audience and creating content accordingly, or following and engaging with accounts that may be similar and relevant to your brand. It also helps to include relevant hashtags—though you don’t go overboard with them in posts. Be sure to include hashtags that will be of interest to your target audience.

A copy-and-paste approach may seem ideal when posting content across various social platforms, but sometimes it helps to take the time to curate and differentiate content for each respective platform. What draws attention on Facebook may fall into the ether on Twitter and vice versa. Giving your social accounts a more authentic feel may require a more unique posting method based on your target audience.

Continue reading for 10 strategies you can use to build your brand on social media.

Influencers on social media tend to specialize in a certain area—whether it’s the beauty, parenting, or financial coaching spaces, specificity is key. Finding a niche can sometimes be challenging for one with myriad interests, but it helps for an influencer to hone in on a specific audience and establish authority. Your niche is what you’re genuinely interested in and what suits your personality.

After deciding what you want to focus on, begin creating your posts around that topic. It helps to tag other accounts closely related to your topic of interest.

What does your business know about its customers? What are their age groups? Where are they located? These are questions that companies need to ask in order to learn about their customers.

In terms of selecting influencers to represent their brand, companies will want to partner with influencers followed by the same group of people who purchase its products and services. Influencers who are authentic, engaging, and who have an understanding of the brand will be key to the success of the company’s social media campaigns.

It’s important for a business to know the demographics of its target market when deciding which social media channels to use. Brands that are more visual may lean toward Instagram and TikTok, while brands focused on real-time events may find Twitter to be more suitable.

It’s beneficial to define social media goals and to figure out the social media channels the company’s audience uses in order to develop a receptive audience. Take time to analyze the type of content the business is posting on its channels and how the content works for each social media platform.

As of 2021, for business-to-business companies, Facebook and LinkedIn tend to be the preferred social media platforms. For business-to-consumer companies, Facebook and Instagram were the most popular platforms.

A brand’s target audience is the most crucial aspect of developing a voice and tone. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and consider what would inspire them to take action to buy your company’s product or follow your brand.

Often, companies take more of a general approach, directing social media posts to a broad audience, but catering to more niche users may work better. Brands need to think of what it is they wish to accomplish—when the dust settles, what is the primary purpose?—and how the answer to that question can resonate long-term with its audience.

Networking on social media has been a way for many companies to get their name out there and build brand recognition. It’s no different when influencers decide to join forces, even if just for one specific event. It can be highly beneficial to collaborate with fellow industry influencers, whether it’s launching a cross-promotional giveaway experience or appearing on another influencer’s podcast.

Whether you’re looking to expose your business to a bigger audience, generate leads, or boost traffic to your blog, partnering with fellow influencers with a similar target audience can be impactful. Collaboration can diversify an influencer or company’s possibilities, build connections, and create more opportunities overall. 

For the most part, influencers work independently and generate their own content while integrating a brand’s marketability. For relevant influencers, creating content takes time; therefore, a brand must recognize and value the work required in growing that influencer’s following and establishing their voice.

When it comes to promoting products and services, in-demand influencers tend to lean toward companies that offer paid partnerships in addition to complimentary products. This is not to say that influencers will only work with a company that gives away free products, but the pull of a partnership arrangement is certainly a more attractive, mutually beneficial arrangement.

Companies should focus on trends to better hone their marketing efforts. Some trends include the rise of short video content shared on platforms, such as TikTok, or via Instagram Stories and Youtube Shorts, all of which have resonated with marketers and brands, notably throughout the pandemic.

The e-commerce option for social media platforms has also taken off as brands can connect their online store with their brand’s social media account, removing the need for a third-party website. Paid advertising on social media also gives brands the opportunity to showcase content in front of a target audience.

It can be challenging to post consistently on social media, especially when managing several social platforms or multiple accounts across platforms. But consistency is key when it comes to audience recognition and follower growth and retention.

Posting strategically and consistently maximizes your organic reach, which is the number of people you reach without paying for an ad or boosting a post. Scheduling your content ahead of time with news or upcoming events can make it feel more timely. Planning in advance also allows you to keep a steady stream of posts in front of your audience at times when you may not be online.

Engagement develops customer relationships, builds trust, and helps businesses reach a larger audience. It’s also a quick way for companies and influencers to receive feedback on what’s resonating with their target audience. Some ways that companies and influencers engage on social media is through responding to comments, sharing content, responding to direct messages, and creating polls to generate responses on insights for particular topics.

In most cases, engagement is often more important in terms of impact than the number of followers, as a business can have 20,000 followers on social media with zero engagement. This results in a low return on investment. But if there are, say, 5,000 followers with much higher engagement, a higher ROI makes the business appear more credible and not like there’s a bunch of ghost followers.

In recent years, social media has served as a major tool for businesses and influencers to have a better understanding of their audience. There are ways to analyze social media data through built-in insights and analytics that are provided by most social platforms. These findings show information such as demographics, impressions, and reach, all of which are essential metrics for building an audience.

Analytics and metrics help to track progress, such as the speed at which you’re building an audience and which posts are performing better than others. The posts that do well can be an example of what may work for similar future posts.

Social media engagement can be a war of attrition, so weeding out content that is not engaging your target audience will result in a stronger overall profile and present an image of brand authority.

This story originally appeared on PLANOLY and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.

Just a few years into the 21st century, social media took the world by storm with Facebook emerging in 2004, following predecessors like Friendster and Myspace. YouTube became a thing in 2005, followed shortly after by Twitter. Instagram made its debut in 2010, and TikTok currently serves as inspiration for many burgeoning social platforms with its high engagement and large-scale profits. In fact, TikTok surpassed Google in 2021 as the most popular website. 

Instagram is perhaps the social media platform most well-known for introducing the concept of the influencer. What an influencer exactly is tends to be loosely defined, as it requires neither fame nor influence in and of itself. Instead, part of the job description is having the tenacity to project a personal image out into the digital world and in so doing, affect the behavior (and spending patterns) of followers. 

Influencers post and share their daily lives through photo and video posts as a way to connect with their followers and inspire them to learn about the products they use or recommend. In 2014, Instagram introduced its paid advertisements feature, which allowed brands to partner with various influencers to sell products to consumers with just a tap of a finger. The influencer gets paid to share and post the product on their platform. It was, from the very start, a win-win situation for both parties.

Very quickly, the days when ad agencies needed to plan expensive photo shoots and buy placements in magazines to sell a product were disappearing. Other long-held rules of the advertising world were also rapidly becoming passe, such as trying to forecast consumer trends several months ahead and engaging marketing think-tanks to develop a “character” (think Tony the Tiger or Geico’s gecko) to make a brand more personally identifiable to the average consumer. The advertising game has now evolved, with consumers becoming an active driving force behind a product. To get a more detailed look at how and why this has occurred, Planoly analyzed social media, advertising, and consumer trends to highlight how advertising has evolved from catchy slogans, jingles, and celebrity endorsements to the digital age of social media influencers and online metrics.

Social media has evolved from being a popular pastime for people to connect with others and share personal news to being a marketing tool that influences trends, behavior, and cultural positioning for individuals and companies alike. Consumers who use social media have options to purchase products from various platforms, whether it’s purchasing new or used items on Facebook Marketplace or buying a product from an Instagram boutique. In 2021, over 47% of U.S. social media users aged 16-34 made an online purchase directly from Instagram, and nearly 51% said they made purchases on Facebook. Experts predict that Gen Z and millennials will be the primary growth drivers of social commerce, contributing 62% of spending by 2025 to a sector expected to reach $1.2 trillion.

Influencers are as much social media personalities as they are entrepreneurs. Considered by mainstream consumers as significant in the social media space—notably Instagram and TikTok—influencers can leverage their online network to drive purchasing decisions, especially when it comes to marketing and advertising for a company or organization. Major brands are aware of the value of influencers and influencer marketing, and in 2022 are projected to spend $15 billion in this space. TikTok’s explosive growth has caught the attention of even more marketing agencies that are willing to participate in sponsored TikTok collaborations. The digital expansion continues to include retailers online, which means more potential partnerships for brands and, of course, more opportunity for influencers.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has perhaps permanently changed the course of consumer spending, as evidenced by a 9.4% increase in e-commerce spending during the winter holiday months of 2020 compared to 2021. In addition to increasing their online spending, consumers have forced a shift in brand loyalty with 75% of shoppers around the world indicating that they've tried different shopping methods and explored brands they've never used before. Social media purchases alone are expected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025, an increase from $492 billion in 2021. The most common items sold on social media platforms are clothing, electronics, and home decor.

Influencer marketing has seen a rise in recent years with many businesses now having an influencer-oriented budget included in their market strategy. Businesses employ ‘audience reach’ data to measure the success of influencer programs, which shows the number of views an influencer gets on a piece of content. Engagement can be analyzed through likes, shares, and comments, while ‘conversion’ tracks any action a user makes after viewing an influencer's content on social media, such as clicking to a product's website. Some other ways conversions can be calculated include when a viewer makes a purchase, completes an online form, or downloads an app after reviewing content that was posted on the page.

Advertisers have definitely had to pivot throughout the digital age not just in how they create content but how they spend their marketing dollars. Budgets have shifted from traditional media (such as print and TV ads and billboards) to digital media — and when you add the impact of the pandemic to the mix, it's clear that priorities have narrowed. During the pandemic, consumer behavior rapidly changed and advertisers had to keep up. As contactless payment increased, advertisers had to conform to more digital approaches.

Let’s flashback to pre-social media days when advertising was portrayed through catchy commercial jingles on television and radio, brand characters were created around cereal products, and flashy photos of celebrities were sprawled across glossy magazines and catalogs. It was a time when consumers were more in the spectator seat; the function of ads was to sell to the passive consumer. Fast forward to today and consumers are becoming more than just onlookers. In order to build consumer trust, brands are now partnering with people whom they would have traditionally targeted as a consumer. The content seen in marketing and advertising is different now with consumers using their own platforms, creating Tik Tok and Instagram videos from their own living room, and putting their own form of advertising content out into the digital world just by typing #ad.

Social media has significantly changed the way we communicate, making it easy to find out more about interests, hobbies, and products instantly at our fingertips. According to the Pew Research Center, 86% of Americans get their news from a digital device. Social media, which is free of charge, has allowed more people to share their voices and opinions with a much wider audience. Before, news and information came from traditional vehicles of television, magazines, and newspapers, which were gatekeepers deciding who could be seen and heard. Now, anyone with a social media account can send out information. One message can be sent to a mass amount of people with just a click, which is highly beneficial for marketing agencies that wish to get the word out about a new product.

It’s crucial for businesses to establish a social media presence and create a strategy for responding to customers’ questions or concerns in a timely manner. Human interaction online is fundamental to real-time engagement and lends itself to brand loyalty and trust. If an audience doesn’t feel a meaningful connection to a brand beyond a purchase, they may switch to another competitor. Social media allows brands real-time insight into their customers' preferences—they can track which images are most popular for the brand’s social posts and what words or phrases are a hit. In the era of instant accessibility, research trends suggest that social media users expect companies to respond to their inquiries or comments within 24 hours.

The rise of e-commerce powerhouses such as Amazon, as well as evergreen hubs like eBay, has pushed brands toward more and more advertising in an effort to increase retail sales across the board. The advertising industry globally saw huge gains in 2021, especially in digital media with social media being a driving force. The U.S. ad market is estimated to surpass $300 billion in spending in 2022, with the global market projected to be $700 billion. While traditional advertising and media such as television and radio pose a varied outlook when it comes to growth, ad agency Zenith predicts that digital media ad spend will crest $200 billion in 2022.

These days, it is easier than ever before for advertising agencies and influencers to measure success in real-time. Influencers and marketing agencies can determine the success of a marketing campaign within a month or less through detailed metrics such as user engagement, amount of shares, likes and reach, and conversions. Although engagement doesn’t have a monetary value, it’s a valuable metric in determining brand awareness among their target audience. Measures of success, as well as the ability to figure out what’s not working, can be easily tracked through the number of followers gained or lost, as well as click count. Businesses generally establish a time period when key performance indicators are measured such as monthly or quarterly.

This story originally appeared on Planoly and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.