The X platform saw a record-breaking 942 million posts worldwide and a 15.5 per cent increase in new user sign-ups on US election day and the day after, according to a post by official account XData.
Meanwhile, Threads (owned by Instagram’s parent company Meta) is also on the rise. It’s been adding more than a million users a day this month.
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It all amounts to a hotly contested social media landscape fuelled further by this month’s US poll.
There are questions now about whether X will merge with Truth Social, Donald Trump’s own social media network that has about 2 million users. Elon Musk bought Twitter for $US44 billion in 2022, and Truth Social’s current valuation sits at about $US10 billion, which would be easily affordable for the world’s richest man, Musk. There are also questions about whether Bluesky can maintain its current growth and momentum, including in Australia.
Kayla Medica, a start-up industry veteran and author of marketing book The Mehdeeka Method, said that Twitter had long closed its Australian office, signifying a lack of interest in the local market.
Kayla Medica is a start-up industry veteran and author of marketing book The Mehdeeka Method.
“From a local investment in staff, offices, and engaging with Australian prominent figures such as journalists and politicians, to a complete withdrawal from the market, X has not viewed Australia as more than a footnote in a closed chapter.”
For Medica, while Bluesky is pitching itself as an X replacement, to date it has shown no indication that it’ll diverge from X’s views of the Australian market.
“The next big thing in social media is hard to predict … New platforms have a more saturated market, users who already have enough accounts, and without either a clear differentiation like TikTok’s ‘For You’ page focus or an overwhelming level of grassroots engagement, new platforms like Bluesky are facing a Sisyphean task,” she said.
“As for whether or not Musk’s investment in X was worthwhile, the success cannot be measured in a vacuum that only looks at classic tech metrics like active users or revenue from advertising.
“As his personal history shows, his fans are willing to follow him from platform to platform and won’t stay isolated to X even if it eventually shuts, just like the Sydney office.“
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