Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it “X,” it seems like a day can’t go by without the social media platform making headlines.
In the wake of increasing controversies including a substantial rise in bot traffic and hate speech, scores of users and companies are reassessing their relationship with X. Most recently, more than 100 of X’s most prominent advertisers, including Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Netflix have indefinitely paused advertising after Musk posted an endorsement of an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
Given how volatile the platform has become, it’s understandable if you’re reconsidering how you use X for your B2B marketing initiatives. Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.
X can still be a valuable tool for B2B marketing under the right circumstances. Whether or not it still makes sense for you comes down to how you’re using the platform, what you’re promoting, and – most importantly – to whom you’re promoting it.
We may not be able to tell you whether it makes sense for you to keep using X outright, but we can help you figure it out for yourself. Try answering each of the following questions to determine whether the platform still has something to offer your B2B marketing.
Is your audience still active on X?
As with any channel you’re considering using, this is the most important question to ask. If your audience is sticking with X, then you probably should too.
You can first evaluate whether the platform is still driving significant traffic to your website and landing pages. If you run ads, are they delivering results?
Beyond metrics, the best way to figure out if your audience is still on X is to look up decision maker’s profiles. Check their activity on the platform to see how frequently they post and — even more importantly — how frequently they react and respond to other posts. You should also see how many of these decision makers already follow you. If you already have an audience on X, you shouldn’t give that up.
If you’re not sure about whether relevant decision makers are still on X, consider recent X demographics as compiled by Pew Research Center. According to their findings:
- The most common age group of X users in the US is 18 to 29 years old (42{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} of respondents)
- More men use X than women (26{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} vs. 19{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} of respondents in the US)
- X users in the US are more likely to live in the suburbs (26{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760}) or cities (25{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760}) than in rural locations
- Adults with higher incomes use X at slightly higher rates
Reassess who you’re trying to connect with on X and why. If your goals still make sense and seem achievable based on who’s still active X, consider keeping your marketing on. Otherwise, ask yourself the rest of these questions:
Are your competitors still on X?
Are the brands you’re competing with still maintaining an active presence on X? Even more importantly: what are they using X for, exactly? If they’ve actively promoting their services, live tweeting news and events, and responding to other posts to start conversations, then chances are they’re still achieving their goals on the platform.
If they’ve stopped posting as frequently and they rarely respond to other posts, however, then chances are they’re downscaling their involvement.
If your competition is still active on X, then you should strongly consider remaining there, as well. Even if X’s influence is waning, it is still a primary social media channel. Pulling out of a major channel while your competition remains there means ceding the share of voice that the channel provides to them. As your posts disappear and your competition’s continue, your audience will begin to associate your brand with your category less and start to think of your competition first instead.
Do you live-tweet events and breaking news?
For a long period, Twitter was the go-to social media platform for keeping up with news and events as they happened. In an October 2022 survey by Hootsuite, many more Twitter users said they use the platform to “keep up to date with news and current events” than for any other purpose (61.2{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} vs. 38{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} for the next most-popular usage).
The rapid-fire nature of tweeting made it easy and engaging to watch reactions to events and news as they unfolded, making Twitter especially popular during major cultural events such as the Super Bowl. This use of Twitter has largely continued following the X rebranding. That means using X to contribute to unfolding conversations about events and news as they occur could still be a very valuable application of the platform.
Of course, whether or not that matters to your brand depends on how valuable it would be for you to do this. Do you think your audience is interested in your brand live tweeting industry events and news? Do they follow industry hashtags and contribute to ongoing discussions?
If you’ve ever benefited from being active on Twitter during a major industry event, then there’s reason to believe that you’ll continue to benefit from doing the same thing on X. If your audience isn’t engaged with ongoing news and events in your industry, however, this may not be a reason to stick around.
Can you use it to provide better customer service?
Thanks in large part to social media platforms like X, brands have never been more publicly and immediately available to consumers.
These days, many customers aren’t interested in sending emails to support or going through an online portal to get answers to their questions and concerns. Instead, they might direct-message the brand on social media or even call them out publicly. Threatening as this may sound, it can also be a great opportunity.
Every time your B2B customers interact with your brand on social media, you have a chance to provide an excellent customer service experience.
First, ask: do your customers reach out to you on X at all? Do you want them to? If your customers reach out with legitimate, good-faith questions and concerns, providing them quick help can be a great way to prove to your audience that you’re looking out for them. If you can’t help solve their problems, however, then responding might only make that clearer.
What is your budget and bandwidth?
Finally, it’s worth considering how X fits into your social media marketing budget. If you’re already tight on money or time, then you should consider prioritizing only the most important social media platforms for achieving your goals — whether that’s X or not.
If you have budget and bandwidth to spare, on the other hand, then it’s worth continuing to experiment with X. Try posting new things, interacting with your audience more frequently, and live tweeting events with their hashtags. If you don’t see any positive effects from your efforts, you can always scale back later — and then at least you’ll know.
Even amid its seemingly never-ending controversy, X can still be a valuable tool for B2B marketing for some brands. If your audience is there and you’ve got something to tell them, consider keeping the account active a little longer. Otherwise, it may be time to move on.
If you want help managing your social media — or any other aspect of your B2B marketing — the experts at TopRank Marketing are ready to help.
About the author
Harry is one of TopRank Marketing’s Content Strategists, and has been a professional digital content specialist since 2016. During this time, he has honed his content writing skills and worked closely with SEO and SEM experts to enhance his understanding of how to most effectively create high-quality content that performs well on both search engines and social media. Harry is passionate about creating content that represents the voice of his clients well and provides genuinely relevant, insightful information that his client’s customers will find helpful and entertaining to read. When Harry isn’t writing content, he’s usually reading it, or watching movies. He watches a lot of movies.