It was estimated in 2022 that X (formerly known as Twitter) would lose more that 32 million users worldwide by the year 2024 due to abrupt changes brought on by new CEO, Elon Musk.
From a reduced skeleton crew to a loss of advertisers, it was predicted that X simply wouldn’t have the budget or resources to keep up with maintenance. After all, there’s a lot to look after for what was once one of the world’s most dominating sites. Just think about the infrastructure, the content moderation and technical issues for instance.
But let’s fast forward to now. X has lost approximately 30% of users since the start of 2023 (as of spring 2024). It still gets about 250 million visits every day, though standard users are spending only 30 minutes daily on the platform, on average. This makes your window to reach said users actually quite small. It was also recently polled by YouGov that only 40% of people have a positive opinion of X.
The trend is seemingly on the down-swing as activity drops and ratings are sub-par, however, X is still very much active. With users 30% down, the majority of accounts have not deactivated. In fact, Elon Musk rolled out a paid “premium” type of account, which hosts the most engaged users out of all existing accounts. If you’re going to go so far as to pay for a service, you better get your money’s worth—right? Nonetheless, this does showcase that there are loyal users who are devoted to the platform.
So what does this mean for the future of X?
Well in 2024, people are still predicting the platform’s ultimate demise. Let’s take to the street and ask the general public what they think. And by “taking to the street”, we mean taking to Reddit (another social media platform commonly used to get a variety of anonymous opinions). When prompted on the topic, Reddit users shared opinions such as: “People will continue to leave twitter until it’s bought by a human and purged of Muskrats.”, “Personally I’ll be binning it or not using it very often. Getting a bit fed up with it” and “My money is on it not existing in 2025 (unless it gets a new owner)”.
Take that for what it’s worth, but also consider that according to Business Insider as of April 2024, Threads (Meta’s counter-platform to X) has averaged 21% more daily active users than X.
So back to the most important question: Is X relevant to your business?
The fact is, there are certain industries that do better on X than others. For example, the agricultural sector is surprisingly strong on the platform! Studies also suggest that the top four discussed topics in 2023 were sports, gaming, music and food.
X is not dead… yet. It may not be the right platform for all business types, but if you know your customers are spending quality time there, you might want to consider holding out for them for a little while longer. If X isn’t a favoured space in your community, you might be better off investing time and resources on a platform you know will help your business thrive.
Have you noticed any of these trends on X? We’d love to know!
For more help on determining its value for your business or for coming up with a reliable and results-driven marketing strategy, connect with us at Glacier Media Digital. Many businesses in Vancouver have enjoyed our social media deep dive sessions, and there’s no better time than now to learn to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of social media platforms.