By Juliana Wheeler
Twitter for years had been the social media platform of choice for companies to engage with their stakeholders. Customers and clients were there, journalists were active users, and regulators and politicians actively engaged there, too.
Since Elon Musk took Twitter private in 2022 and renamed it X, the social media platform – which once was THE place to be – has lost advertisers and revenues. Big brands paused advertising on X in 2023 after Musk engaged with posts that were perceived to be antisemitic or otherwise conflicted with the corporates’ brand values. Disney, Apple, IBM, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Fox Sports, Warner Bros. Discovery and the European Union suspended advertising there last year.
Soon after, Musk declared these companies should “F— themselves”, specifically calling out Disney CEO Bob Iger at a New York Times DealBook event. Musk recently threatened to sue the former advertisers for collusion.
X’s user numbers are said by external sources to have declined between 13% to 30% since 2022, though X last year said active monthly users rose to 550 million. Companies are unlikely to spend money with a shrinking platform whose owner swears at them and threatens to sue.
That makes moving ad spend an easy decision for CMOs. Once CCOs and social media strategists see where users are headed, they are likely to follow; LinkedIn appears to be benefitting from X’s woes.
Threads hasn’t (yet?) gained steam, while its flashier cousin, Instagram, is less newsy. Tik Tok has real momentum especially with younger users, but its black box algorithm is increasingly facing criticism from governments, regulators and parents, which might scare off some users and brands. Facebook remains the biggest social media platform with more than 3 billion monthly active users, though it doesn’t have the real-time engagement or breaking news buzz that X did when it was Twitter.
LinkedIn doesn’t have that buzz, but it had 1 billion members, 310 million of which were active monthly users, at the end of 2023. It was ranked the most trusted social media platform by marketing professionals, according to a survey by Hootsuite. LinkedIn’s ad revenue increased 10% in 2023 to nearly $4 billion as the cost to advertise rose 30% via its auction model, largely driven by advertisers leaving X, the FT reported.
Anecdotally, we have seen our contacts posting more personal updates on LinkedIn. Here’s an example by a friend and former colleague who wrote eloquently on LinkedIn about how the recent race violence in London impacted him. We suspect our LinkedIn contacts aren’t the only ones bringing their whole selves to what had been only a jobs board.
Is it time to ditch X? It depends what you use it for. If you want to engage with political or breaking news, X is still the first place you’ll find this content.
If you’re a CCO or CMO who is promoting and protecting your company’s brand, or if you want a friendlier experience, LinkedIn is having its moment as the NEW place to be.
Additional reporting by Ksenia Rokhlina