Tesla And Twitter Are In The Same Business Of Managing Expectations

Though making electric cars and running an online service couldn't be more dissimilar, Tesla and Twitter are in the same business of managing expectations. How they've fared in recent media coverage says a lot about what communications approaches work, which don't, and why.

Both brands have problems. Tesla didn't make enough money last quarter, and reports of recent accidents appear to question the safety of its cars and factory, so its stock is down. Twitter launched an IPO, yet has no idea how to make money and, though a wash of put warrants in Europe appear to bet on its inability to figure it out anytime soon, expectations are high. In fact, Twitter's market cap is significantly greater than Tesla's.

The difference is how the world sees each company, and how the companies respond.

It might seem counterintuitive, but Twitter is the conventional play. The magic of social media is a given these days, as is the belief that monetized is an evolved form of free. Twitter has implicit supporters in its vast user base, and requires nothing from them in exchange for pleasantly expending some of their time and, perhaps thereby, enjoying their tacit approval. The company is judged by metrics invented solely for the purpose of affirming its purpose. Nobody knows what it'll look like in 2 years, let along 20, but that doesn't really matter. All it has to do is market itself to the accepted wisdom of today's zeitgeist, and its backers will collect their zillions soon enough.

Tesla is the game-changer. It faces institutional opposition and generations' old consumer habits, and the amount of time, expense, and effort required to create a viable network to support its product offering is just shy of overwhelming. It has no natural advocates, since it sells a luxury product to a very selective market. Everyone knows what it will look like in a decade or two; more realistically, it's obvious what it must create, and then sustain, if it hopes to serve the customers it has already acquired, let alone new ones. Marketing itself against the conventional wisdom has meant literally punching and shoving itself into a cynical marketplace.

So Twitter gets cut a lot of slack, where Tesla doesn't. It's almost as if Twitter's shareholders know it's simply a spinning carousel of cash from which they need to jump before it stops, whereas the variables in Tesla's story are complex, which means its ability to meet its profit goals are continually reassessed and revalued. Making things now is a lot harder than selling potential ideas later on. If Tesla doesn't suffer a reality discount, surely its actions are held up to a different, far more critical standard than those of Twitter.

Each company addresses those expectations differently.

Twitter comes across as generically pleasant, its founders cut from the techie boy-genius mold that central casting provides to most startups these days. There's no particular voice for the brand, no trail of official comments that is particularly searchable, or worth reading. Tesla's founder and his company are another matter. Elon Musk is also cut from the same class of innovators, but after spinning off his invention of PayPal, he's not only trying to reinvent the car industry, but building a fleet of spaceships (SpaceX). When he or his cadre of zealot followers see things in the media they don't like, they go on the attack, all Lance Armstrong-like. If you're not with Tesla, you're against it.

These different approaches accentuate the inherent bias in the media and culture toward the easy-go-lucky, effortless activities of a Twitter, over Tesla's arguably far more real and daring toil. Twitter is happy with everyone, and it buys into the pleasant, consensual hallucination that is social media. Tesla is on a crusade, and that means it's always at war with someone over something. The expectations for both companies are a result of these differences, in large part.

Another similarity they share, however, is that they both risk playing too perfectly to form.

No brand can truly succeed, or do so to its full potential, unless it finds ways to challenge and reset expectations. Twitter's promise of a dim but perfect future will star to wear (if it hasn't already, at least with some critics), and Tesla's us vs. them mentality will eventually lead folks to question whether it is building a real, sustainable company. Expectations are based on peoples' belief that their understanding of the past, informed by the reality of what they know today, will be applicable in the future. What worked this time - a happy IPO, or assertions of safety - may not work next time. Expectations for Twitter and Tesla will suffer if they don't do something different.

I don't know what those actions should be, but I can imagine a few possibilities. Twitter might come up with a really different approach to making money, something that doesn't rely on a hundred year-old advertising model. It could start actively challenging its lazy critics, and dare them to think differently and more critically about the brand. Tesla could offer a vehicle designed for rank-and-file car buyers (like a pickup truck it announced yesterday), so as to marshall true populist support for its brand and crusade. It might stop actively challenging people at every turn, and allow them to think more favorably and hopefully about the brand.

In other words, they could borrow a page from each other's play books.

Ultimately, Twitter might get away with never solving the profit thing, and Tesla could end up being our generation's Tucker or DeLorean. But if either is going to benefit the largest number of stakeholders, not to mention stick around long enough to change the world in truly meaningful ways, recent events suggest they'll have to address the challenge they both share:

Tesla doesn't just build cars, and Twitter doesn't solely run a social platform. Both brands are in the expectations business.