Hanna Garrett, PR and Marketing Manager:
It’s been nearly two years since Elon Musk purchased Twitter. During that time, the platform has seen, pardon the pun, an x-odus of users. Most recently, The Guardian announced it would no longer be posting on its editorial accounts on the platform.
With a third of UK users, a fifth of users from USA, and five per cent of European users no longer actively using the platform, there has been concern about the impact of X’s declining user base on marketing strategies.
Why are users leaving?
Trust in advertising on X has dramatically decreased during Musk’s tenure, from 22 per cent in 2022 to just 12 per cent in 2024. With accusations of misinformation, extremism, and hate speech, it is no surprise that businesses and organisations are questioning their presence on X to protect their brand.
But, what are the alternatives?
Over the past two years, a host of new platforms have sprung into existence, all eager to position themselves as an alternative to X. While some have seen limited adoption (BeReal, anybody?), others are steadily gaining traction.
Bluesky: developed by Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey, offers a decentralised and privacy-focused environment for a userbase that surged to 19 million in mid-November. Bluesky is a microblogging network not dissimilar to X, but users have more options for control over what content they see on the platform through customisable feeds. It is also currently an advert-free platform.
Mastodon: Mastodon is an open-source platform, which means that anyone can set up a server and run a community if they wish to, similar to a forum or a discussion board. The biggest benefit of Mastodon is its extensive content moderation. Each server (community) can decide its moderation policy and which other servers it will communicate with. While it aligns with the value of transparency, its user interface and segmented approach may be less intuitive for broader audiences.
Threads: Meta’s Threads boasts seamless integration with Instagram, making it an attractive choice for brands already invested in Meta’s ecosystem. Unlike Bluesky, Threads has enough active users to rival X. However, its conversational focus does not fully replicate X’s real-time news dynamic, and is more suitable for big consumer brands; it’s been dubbed “the less corporate version of X”. Like Bluesky, Threads is currently an advert-free platform.
Considering joining the X-odus?
While Bluesky has reached 20 million users, it is still a long way off encroaching on Threads’ 275 million users – and X still claims to have 570 million active users. The biggest challenge moving away from X presents to marketing strategies is disruption, including a possible loss of reach, engagement and precise targeting. For businesses that are still advertising on X, a lack of advertising options on platforms, such as Bluesky and Threads, is also a key consideration. Finally, many organisations and individuals have expressed concerns about rebuilding their established audiences, particularly in education, healthcare and the media.
How can your business adapt to an X-free future?
At Conscious Communications, we recommend a multi-channel approach to marketing to ensure you reach the right audiences, with the right message, at the right time. This enables you to harness the unique strengths of each platform. Marketers should consider:
- Diversifying their social media strategy to include newer channels and testing the capabilities of each platform, especially as new features are added
- Building a stronger community using other owned channels such as email, podcasts and blogs to nurture audience connections
- Focusing on first-party data and retaining loyal customers to create brand advocates
While X continues to retain value for breaking news and media engagement, businesses with an established presence may wish to continue to use it while monitoring for the impact of the platform prioritising paid content on reach and engagement. However, with proactive and flexible strategies that respond to changes, organisations can continue to reach and engage with their target audiences if they choose to leave X.
Ultimately, the success of any new social media channel is hard to predict so businesses should wait and see how the current contenders evolve before making significant changes to their existing marketing strategies.
If you need help with reviewing your current social media strategy, Conscious Communications can help. Get in touch.