I’m writing about Twitter… optimistically? That’s rather shocking. Elon and the Dead Bird App are usually my favorite punching bags, but credit where credit’s due, they made a good… well, they tried to make a good move. We’ll get into it below.

In this issue, we’ll hit on:

—Jack Appleby

If you’re a marketer, you know you should be writing on your LinkedIn.

The problem is you open a blank doc, stare at it for 10 minutes, then decide you’ll “do it tomorrow.” (Tomorrow never comes.)

That’s why I made Break an Egg!

It’s a $5/month thing where I send you one writing prompt for every day. Not “post inspirational content” prompts—actual questions that help you dig into your own career and realize you’ve done way more interesting stuff than you think.

Projects. Opinions. Lessons. Stuff you already know, but haven’t turned into posts yet.

It’s meant for people who want to start building a personal brand on LinkedIn without feeling weird, fake, or like they suddenly have to become a creator.

If you’ve been telling yourself “I really should start writing,” this is the lowest-pressure way I know to do it. Sign up right here!

For the first time in a longgg time, Twitter made a move that feels genuinely strategic! And even have a marketing campaign to support it!

The app-I-refuse-to-call-X is officially promoting X Articles, allowing long-form writing to live directly within the feed. They even launched a $1 million winner-take-all contest for the Top Article written in the next two weeks.

Love the idea of Articles. Love the idea of a mega contest to promote it… but pretty sure this contest’s structure ensures it’ll end pretty damn badly, and likely just highlight the current state of Twitter.

Over the past year, X quietly rolled out Articles. And you know, they’re pretty solid.

Articles are long-form posts that live natively on the platform, with no character limits, rich formatting, headlines, and everything else you’d need to craft a dynamic piece. They live right on Twitter, natively open on the platform, and you can even monetize pieces as subscriber-only content.

It’s a smart play. Short-form and long-form writing can live on the same social network. Substack’s seen a lot of success with the reverse play, starting with long-form articles and adding a feed + tweet-like “notes” to their app. Longer pieces will hopefully add more thoughtfulness to a network that’s become a tar pit the last few years. I’ll probably repurpose some Future Social greatest hits as Twitter Articles, see if I can revive the 80,000 followers I abandoned over there.

To push adoption, Twitter announced a $1M article contest. Write an article on the platform, submit it, and one winner takes home a million dollars.

In our pivot-to-video world, I’m genuinely thrilled anytime I see long-form writing have the chance for real cash. It’s becoming a lost art & far too often viewed as a chore farmed to ChatGPT. I really hope the contest encourages bunches of smart people to pen quality pieces, and I hope tweeters engage enough to keep those big brains around.

Buttt I have some notes on this contest structure, specifically how the winner is chosen.

Per their tweet, entries in the $1 million contest are judged “primarily on Verified Home Timeline impressions.” That pretty much means it’s a popularity contest. Which I don’t love in winner-take-all.

Big creators will have a likely insurmountable advantage over casual users—they’ve got built in fan bases excited to engage with the content. Distribution will beat quality. If MrBeast writes an article? He’d genuinely win in a landslide victory. The rich get richer, while talented writers without followings don’t stand a chance.

I’m sure Twitter went this route to align with their views on free speech. It’s theoretically democratic if they pick the most liked/retweeted Article. But I’d have liked to have seen that $1 million split across different genres or types of writing. Imagine if we had categories for fiction, and personal growth, and cultural criticism, or scientific research, or comedy, or anything that rewarded different types of writing? Twitter would’ve ended up with a long list of strong Articles they could promote as example, similar to Instagram’s Rings program.

Flaws aside, there’s something refreshing about the way Twitter is doing this.

Big, visible contests feel more human than most platform marketing. Yeah, we all love Creator Funds & Platform Bonuses, but when executed correctly, moments like Twitter’s $1 Million Articles Contest feel like the platforms speaking more directly to users, and feel like a more notable contribution to everyone.

A $1M headline does more cultural work than a dozen blog posts about empowering writers. It creates aspiration and tells people this kind of work is worth something! I’d love to see Twitter run this more often, with a few tweaks.

And I do think this contest will be a win for Twitter. It drives Premium subscriptions. It forces people to try Articles. It generates headlines. It crowdsources marketing. It makes the platform feel relevant again. As a PR and product adoption move, it’s extremely effective. The trick will be getting people into the continued habit of writing when money isn’t on the line.

Do you remember when Pitbull had to perform in Alaska?

Back in 2012, Walmart ran a contest. They used to have individual Facebook Pages for each of their stores—whichever store page got the most likes won a concert from Pitbull. To absolutely no one’s surprise, trolls organized an #ExilePitbull movement, and Kodiak, Alaska’s Walmart won a show from Mr. Worldwide (and to his credit, he went!)

Twitter’s the trolliest, most polarizing social network right now. I gotta believe we’re gonna see some Pitbullish activity during the contest, and wouldn’t be at all surprised if some truly insane writing won the whole thing.

But the risk isn’t that something bad wins—it’s that the contest trains people to keep treating Twitter as an unserious place. Some genuine good could come from this, but I fear something chaotic will be rewarded.

My lone hope: a Twitter article went hyper viral a few days ago that’s genuinely warm and hopeful. Author Dan Koe penned “How to fix your entire life in 1 day,” published it via Twitter Articles, and earned 154 million views in six days. It sadly doesn’t qualify for the contest since he posted a few days before its announcement, but I’d love to see more of this kinda stuff on Twitter.

I genuinely like that Twitter is trying to pay for seriousness. I like when platforms reward more thoughtful content, even when 99% of the feed (and what gets engagement) is low brow. This is a rare step in the right direction for what was formerly my favorite social network.

Twitter deserves credit for trying to grow up. The open question is whether it’s willing to influence the culture of its own platform, or if this is a one-off gag that’ll just reinforce the worst of the app.