Twitter to X: What churches and church leaders need to consider

Ever since October 2022, when Elon Musk bought Twitter and made it a private company, it has been in the news. The renowned business magnate and investor made headlines for everything from taking away people’s blue checks to laying off most of their trust and safety team.  

Then, at the end of July, Musk abruptly changed the name of the company from Twitter to X. He said the name change better reflects where the company is headed

“The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140-character messages going back and forth — like birds tweeting — but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video,” Musk said at the time. “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world.”

With all the changes since its purchase, it is time for churches and church leaders to evaluate whether X is meeting their social media needs and media relation needs. 

Perhaps these questions will help you decide.

Is your audience still on X?

In a spring 2023 survey of people who used X, 60% of them said they had taken a break from the service. To be sure, there have been many changes in the platform since Musk took over that have had a significant effect on who is actually logging in. 

Now is a good time to take stock of your audience members. Are they still there? Are they still interacting with you? If they have left, it might be time for you to consider taking a break.

Could you migrate to another platform?

Although X gets a lot of media coverage, it is a bit lower on the list of social media platforms in terms of regular active users (12th on this chart). Facebook is at the top with 3 billion. YouTube has almost 2.5 billion. X has somewhere around 650 million. 

At the same time, if that is where you have built an audience, leaving is not a simple decision. 

Here is something else to consider: Using only one social media platform can be risky. if it goes offline, makes major changes or bans your account, you will be at risk of losing touch with your audience. 

If you have another platform that you would like to migrate to, it would be wise to post a link to that platform on X and ask people to follow you there as well. If you decide to take a break from X, you can do so knowing that many of your connections will go with you.

If Threads — Instagram’s counterpart to X — is a platform you’re considering migrating to, you can find out all you need to know here, in this MyCom podcast.