Elon Musk dominated headlines throughout 2023 after purchasing Twitter in the year prior. Musk purchased the social media platform with bold promises to advocate for free speech, to prevent bots and misinformation and to create the “everything app.”

Since taking over, Musk has made good on his promises to make changes, but those changes did not all yield positive returns. Since taking over, Musk has overseen widespread layoffs, as well as controversial decisions to outsource content moderators, rebrand Twitter to X and introduce a monthly subscription model. Under his direction during the first year, the company’s ad revenue dropped a minimum of 55% year-over-year each month and lost about 13% of its daily active users.

Not surprisingly, X’s viability for brands as a valuable social media tool is being questioned by organizational leaders, as well as their marketing and communications teams.

Is X worth a place in your social media strategy? Let’s look at a few considerations for business leaders reevaluating their brands’ activity on X. 

• Time spent vs. ROI: Twitter since the beginning has been dependent on real-time interaction. In the last year, the platform has undergone significant security and algorithmic changes, which have resulted in fewer impressions and engagement on posts. This has been particularly true for those who chose to opt out of the paid subscription model. Regardless of the type of account, X as we know it today requires a significant time investment of diligent posting and interaction for even a chance at climbing user feeds.

• Public trust concerns: Musk’s public intention when he bought Twitter was to encourage free speech and prevent misinformation. However, Musk has struggled to uphold these promises and has taken heavy criticism in the media related to the spread of misinformation on the platform. Taylor Swift, for example, was recently a victim or misinformation on the platform when AI-generated explicit photos began circulating the platform as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The potential implications of a violation of public trust for X users, coupled with controversial statements made by Musk, have prompted businesses and corporations to reconsider their connection with X.

• Changing features: In Musk’s endeavor to make X the everything app, the company has made considerable changes to platform features. For example, when displaying links, X now removes headlines and makes clickable links less visible to limit linking outside the platform. For most businesses, social media is used to direct customers to a different place, whether that be the company website or a blog post. Limiting access to such links could diminish any return for businesses utilizing X.

The attention around X should serve as a reminder to business owners, that a social media strategy should always be evolving and that they should regularly evaluate engagement across all channels. Some platforms, or a company’s current strategy for a certain platform, may no longer be serving them well, and new resources and features are always popping up.

LinkedIn, for example, now offers articles and newsletters for users to post longer form content. Showcasing a business’s expertise and their leaders’ insights in an article could hold more value than posting small snippets on X.

Social media is an investment of time in understanding and establishing business goals that are supported by a platform’s capabilities. To get the most from social media, business leaders and their social media managers must understand how social media platforms could work to their advantage or diminish their investment as they evolve.