There’s no doubt that the platform formerly known as Twitter has lost some of its allure under Elon Musk, with many formerly active niche communities now switching to other platforms instead.
Yet, even so, X remains a key consideration for many, and a habitual connector on certain topics.
Which topics exactly? Check out this chart:
Yes, while political news seems to be the star of the show on X on any given day, it’s actually its connection to sports communities that remains its key differentiator, with many sports fans still turning to the platform to get the latest supplementary updates and news, while watching real-time sports coverage.
Politics is still a major focus, at fifth on the list, while “News” is also a key topic of discussion. But sports, gaming, music, and (for some reason) food remain more important to X’s overall conversational health than Elon’s own political rantings.
Which, given the constant attention that his various opinions get, is surprising, and points to the value of X as a means for high-profile users to amplify their opinions.
The chart was included in a new pitch deck that X is sharing with selected ad partners, as it looks to win back ad spend heading into the last three months of the year. X recently hired a new global head of marketing to spearhead this effort, and according to Digiday, it’s now looking to showcase its value to prospective ad partners, with a focus on real-time connection during breaking events.
Its main offering on this front is its new “Trend Genius” ads which it launched back in July. Trend Genius uses conversational AI to detect rising topics of discussion in the app, and enables brands to then amplify their promotions within topically related peaks, in order to maximize engagement.
X is looking to showcase this as a key value add, based specifically on these topics of focus.
As you can see in this overview, X is also pushing brands to incorporate its Grok AI chatbot to assist in campaign planning, by highlighting keywords to incorporate into a Trend Genius campaign.
That will then enable brands to boost their promotions at key times, based on systematic detection.
It could be a good option, depending on how it works, and if it can help brands tap into these various topical spikes, that could be the best way to link into relevant conversations, at the right times, in the app.
Essentially, it’s “newsjacking” or “trendjacking”, but in a more focused way. So rather than trying to latch onto a topic by including a random hashtag, in order to get into that conversation stream, this enables the same type of approach, in a more focused, targeted way.
The question then is whether advertisers will be open to returning to the app, given the ongoing drama stemming from its updated moderation approach.
According to reports, X’s ad revenue has declined significantly since Musk took over in 2022, with Musk’s own divisive comments sparking increased concerns about brand safety in ad placement. Various reports have also shown that X is indeed showing ads alongside controversial content, while a recent survey conducted by Kantar also found that 26% of marketers actually plan to decrease their spending on X further in 2025, despite already scaling back.
With this in mind, X has a task ahead of it to reshape the broader narrative about the app. And with Elon keen to play a part in the U.S. election, that doesn’t look set to change, at least for the rest of this year.
So while X clearly needs more revenue, it’ll be hard-pressed to drive improvement, even with this new Trend Genius offering. It does look like it could be a valuable consideration, but many brands are not even in the consideration stage for X as yet.
But again, X remains a key connector, in many niches, and will be a valuable complement for some time yet. And if Elon and Co. can realign their moderation approach to incorporate advertiser concerns, there may be a way to get the platform back on track.
It’s not looking to do so at this stage, but there are still signs of opportunity.