Data shows that Tesla has significantly ramped up its own external communications over the previous couple of months as Elon Musk becomes more controversial.
Last month, I wrote an op-ed titled “Tesla badly must bring back its PR department” about why I believe the automaker must bring back its PR department that it dissolved back in 2020.
My predominant point was that, since then, most of Tesla’s public communications have passed through Elon Musk, who’s becoming an increasingly controversial and polarizing character for many individuals, and the corporate would profit from more robust direct communications with the general public.
Tesla has not reinstated its US or global PR team, no less than not yet, however the automaker has actually significantly increased its communications over the previous couple of months.
We noticed that Tesla has been increasingly tweeting about its products currently. Tesla normally would only tweet about latest products or features, but over the previous couple of months, the automaker has began to often post latest threads that feature existing products and features.
For instance, Tesla posted an entire thread about its track mode today:
This wasn’t usual for Tesla until a couple of months ago, so Electrek wondered if it was just in our heads or if the information actually backed it up.
Sure enough, data shows that Tesla has massively ramped up its tweeting during the last three months:
Tesla also ramped up its use of Instagram around the identical time. The automaker also recurrently uses Weibo, but that has at all times been the case as a special team handles Chinese communications.
Moreover, Tesla also ramped up its blog posting effort. Before September, Tesla had only posted two blog posts in 2022 – one to introduce track mode in Plaid vehicles and one to defend itself against a California Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit.
But from September until this month, Tesla published six blog posts on its website.
The timing of this variation appears to match CEO Elon Musk becoming increasingly controversial.
Over the previous couple of months, surveys have shown that Tesla’s status has been happening, and the stock price is crashing further than the remaining of the industry.
Many individuals have associated the trend with Musk becoming increasingly political on Twitter and alienating a giant a part of Tesla’s user base – namely liberals – who buy EVs at a much higher rate than conservatives.
Electrek’s Take
Musk was at all times the defacto Tesla spokesperson, but when Tesla had a worldwide PR department, the automaker had much stronger public communications that didn’t should at all times undergo the CEO.
Since dissolving the PR department, Musk’s Twitter page has turn into the source of 99% of Tesla’s official communications.
It is sensible for the corporate to construct a stronger voice of its own as many individuals don’t feel like following Musk on the social media platform.
In case you were there for his frequent updates and comments about Tesla products, those at the moment are few and much between Musk’s political comments, conspiracy theories, and concerns in regards to the “woke mind virus.”
I’m going to get enthusiastic about Musk on Twitter once he appears to be more enthusiastic about Tesla launching the Cybertruck than the following QAnon drop.
That’s obviously a joke, but sometimes his Twitter looks like that.