Stick or twist: should businesses leave X?

Financially, it’s taken a serious hit. The business’ annual revenue in 2023 was almost 25% below that in 2021 and the trend looks set to continue. Recent data from marketing data and analytics business Kantar shows that over a quarter of marketers plan to reduce their ad spend on the channel over the next 12 months.

It’s not just those putting money into paid-for ads – businesses across the board are considering their position on the platform in response to operational and reputational uncertainty.

Many will have felt pressure over recent weeks to come off X based on principle, but this poses its own risks. First is the danger of being seen simply as making a virtue-signalling move that tries to position businesses as an authority on what should or shouldn’t count within the right of free speech.

At a more fundamental level is the risk of losing an important means of communication. Businesses need to ask themselves how big their target audience is on X and what impact communicating with them has on achieving its organisational objectives. If they’re a valuable audience, can they be reached through another channel like Mastodon or Threads? If the answer is no, is it worth giving up that line of communication?

There’s no easy answer for whether brands should or shouldn’t delete their corporate X accounts. It comes down to careful analysis – specific to the business – of the costs, risks and benefits of maintaining a presence on the medium.

Erratic decisions from the X control room will likely mean this assessment will need to be undertaken more often than most would like as changes shift the balance between pros and cons, but the overriding question should remain the same: does this platform allow me to get across the right message to the people who need to hear it?