Spill co-founder Alphonzo Terrell on attracting advertisers to marginalized social communities

Big advertisers are seemingly ready to abandon X (formerly Twitter) for good this time thanks to owner Elon Musk’s latest antics and an uptick in anti-semitic posts on the platform.

In X’s absence, advertisers may once again find themselves looking for the social media’s next town square after failing to be wooed by X alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky earlier this year. 

Enter Spill. It’s been just over a year since the iOS social media platform with a ‘meme-forward’ aesthetic launched with former Twitter employees Alphonzo "Phonz" Terrell and DeVaris Brown at the helm. It’s not that the duo are trying to re-create Twitter. In fact, Terrell says Spill is an online safe space for LGBTQIA+, POC and other historically marginalized communities. The two have spent the last year on product developments for users as well offerings for advertisers in hopes to mark Spill’s territory in a rapidly changing social media landscape. 

“There's been some very organic integrations and opportunities for brands to plug in and put some shine on what the [Spill] community is already doing,” Terrell said on the most recent episode of the Digiday Podcast, “and also create some new opportunities to just have really rich, fun conversations.”