B2B brands leaving X/Twitter?

Hi Sarah, I’ve dealt with this for a lot of my agency clients! We had a few flat-out say they no longer wanted to be active on Twitter/X, so we went through the process of sunsetting all platforms.

I’d look at audience growth and engagement rate to help make your case. If your competitors are still posting but your client’s efforts aren’t moving the needle, it may be time to pull back.

For my clients, the platforms are still up but I added pinned posts that say “This platform is no longer actively managed. Find us other places, etc.”

It’s a question of conscience for some, a question of what’s practical and competitive for others, and sometimes a messy mix of both. But it’s clear it’s a complex decision to make. Cases in point: 

Why leaving X can be a tricky decision for companies (BBC.com)

Thought I’d share an update that I got approval to move away from Twitter! 🎉

If anyone else is looking to make a business case for their company to leave, here were my major points and some feedback I received: 

• Provide context -- what Twitter was vs what X is, in terms of users and your followers/engagement.
• Analytics -- I showed all of 2024 broken down by our different brands, and then also compared it to what our main platform (LinkedIn) looks like.
• Competitors -- using Sprout’s X competitor analysis, I showed what our competitor’s 2024 looked like, and in particular also highlighted their X followers vs their LinkedIn followers to emphasize that this platform is not where our customers are and even our competitors do not have large followings or engagements.
• Politics -- a piece of feedback I received was that the presentation did not come off as “politically neutral,” and that our company must be neutral and not let politics influence our judgement or messaging. I included Musk’s behaviour as context, but I think restructuring the presentation to have the “why now?” conversation after the analytics and competitors would help thread the needle of neutrality while still providing the context in which the conversation is occurring.
• Proposal -- I outlined what we would do, the impact it would have on day-to-day operations, and how we’d still be able to monitor brand mentions etc.
• Outcome -- my final slide included the top three benefits I saw from leaving the platform. In the case of leaving despite our competitors remaining, I stated we would be seen as leaders choosing to leave rather than staying due to inertia.
• Social trend -- in the Appendix, I also included what I could find online and in the Arb about what other social media managers have done and considered in the conversation, ultimately to try to show that we aren’t the only organization having this conversation.

I hope that helps anyone looking for this kind of info in the future!

We stopped actively posting on X last year, and based our decision purely off data, which made for a compelling argument. Here’s what we included:

1. Analytics about how our engagement, reach, clicks, and followers has declined dramatically since Fall 2022. This included the timelines to show decline and the big percentage numbers. 
2. Competitor analytics over the same period to show that while they may be active, they aren’t seeing great engagement either. 
3. Time that it takes us to create content for the platform within the context of its decline; this was super compelling because we shared how we could re-invest that in platforms that are doing really well for us.

Based on all that my recommendation was: 

• We stop posting on X, and have our last post direct folks to LinkedIn and our newsletter instead (with no mention as to why we’re leaving--it’s actually been quoted by others as a good example of how to leave)
• We do maintain the account in case folks need to reach us in emergency cases (we’re a nonprofit, so we have folks who sometimes need us and that’s the only place they can go)
• Maintaining it also means we won’t lose our username and have it in case it gets bought out again in the future.