For the last few months I have been doing a bit of research myself on X and determining what energies I want to put into it. And like many others, I feel it’s a necessary evil. I have spent some time thinking about it, diving into some statistics, and looking deeper at several aspects of it.
And I cannot say it has made me feel any better.
So first a disclaimer: These are my own personal findings and thoughts. In the end, you do what works for you on any social platform.
The blue checkmark
My BobWP account on X has never been a paid subscription. But I did do it for our Do the Woo account, on the middle level. My two main goals were better mainly the ranking and the fact I could edit my shares.
But, after a few months my stomach just hurt knowing I was giving even one cent to Musk, for a lot of what he stands for. I kept telling myself, gotta do it for the business. Well, it came to a point where I canceled my subscription. Did I see a difference?
Keeping my own strategy I did not see much of a difference. I am sure that the algorithm screwed with me but no significant changes.
Follow, and follow backs
I’ve researched this via the X docs, and they say follow backs do not affect the algorithm. In their eyes maybe that’s true, but by following back more people I have noticed that it’s obvious those people who followed me, are now seeing my content more. Why? Because they are liking and sharing again. Yes, you could say they are doing it because I followed them back, but I have my suspicions.
Privacy and advertising
This is a kicker. Privacy and advertising interests. I doubt if many people keep up on untoggling ad interests. It’s a whack a mole deal. Tell you why. Let’s say someone you do not like, a political figure for example, but you click on it to see what someone said because it’s wasn’t positive about them. Well, that person you do not like suddenly is added to your interests. I found this out by one single click. That sucks. In fact, I waited two days, and although I would say I did not click on this many shares, there was an additional 30+ interests toggled to my account that were crap. And the ones that were added I had not clicked on anything remotely tied to the topic.
Over the time of a month, I was up to 200+ being toggled, and honestly, some of the topics I have never heard of, or as I said, even checked out. What a joke. Yeah, not unexpected but like we say, you are the platform.
Followers, up and down
A lot of people I have seen are complaining that it’s getting harder to grow you follower number, unless you are a celebrity, or have some other status. I’m sure there are some exceptions, but I have a tool where I can track my followers/unfollowers and I’ve learned something. (Note I am only using the free account on Fedica)
So let me share some numbers from the last week.
On our @DotheWoo account, because our numbers are larger, the difference between follower and unfollows are close. Now typically, the followers are always more. Last week on Do the Woo, we had 21 new followers and 17 unfollowers, so with these kinds of numbers, slow growth. Now what you have to understand is of those 17 unfollowers, 3 actually unfollowed us, 7 were accounts deactivated and 7 had their account temporarily restricted.
On my @BobWP account which has less followers, we had 73 new followers and 10 unfollows, which only 2 were actually unfollows.
Over the months this has been all over the board for me. But more than not, the numbers were closer and pretty much canceled out much growth, specifically on Do the Woo.
All about engagement
I often thought if I took a shot of booze each time someone mentions engagement, I would be drunk 24 hours a day.
Engagement is what you make it. And, although many will argue with me, it doesn’t have to be all about engagement. If you are getting the engagement you want, good on you. If you are frustrated and constantly questioning why you don’t have more, well, spend what time you want figuring that out
X is so good! There are many of my friends and colleagues in the WordPress space who claim this and it’s all about engagement. I see so many on the other hands worry that they don’t get enough followers, comments or likes. They compare themselves with others. It’s kind of sad to me.
Polls, a few of the people have spoken
I’m not a fan of polls overall, anywhere unless they are professionally done. Largely because of the small sampling and other factors. And this is more or less my own personal take. Polls on X don’t tell me a lot when it comes to the bigger picture. It never is a good reflection of what people are thinking because so many people who do polls have followers that are in their bubble, and that is reflected and is heavily one-sided.
Some may find them entertaining, which if that is your thing, cool. But in most cases, with serious questions, it’s not even representative of what a good cross of people are thinking, unless you have millions of followers and a high response. But even then. Polls, I can take them or leave them.
Ask a question
More desperate tries at getting engagement. Now hear me out on this. These can be a simple question like, what did you eat for breakfast or what WordPress plugin do you like best, to a bit deeper questions. And I’m sure some of these people who post it do want to know, but….
Watching this over the last few months, I would say it is primarily for engagement, which is fine if you want to do that. But once someone gets a great response, next thing you know is that they are doing it more and more and more.
On the other side, other people, brands and such see this happening, so they do it. They may respond, well, we care about what our followers think. Okay. But we could spend our whole day answering these questions. And for some of them that jump on the bandwagon, I see they get very little engagement. And the desperation grows as they do more while wondering, why does it work for others. Of course I would like the word “work” defined in that case.
Now to be honest, there are some who really ask some good questions and the comments are worth reading. But I don’t think there are many out there with that talent, or that take the time to create something thoughtful, unfortunately.
A few final thoughts
So, what do you think? I know I am sounding a bit on the side of a rant, but lot of this is the facts and I have seen it. I’m am now stepping back as I don’t care to learn anymore about this. And yes, I will stay on X for now. There are still some benefits, but the hanging piece of all the crap on there and who owns it, rattles me still. And my efforts and other means of connecting and sharing keeps me from ever putting a large amount of my eggs in the X basket.
On a scale of 1-10, for my own community, I will give it something between a 6 and 7. For an overall social platform, I give it a 2, but inching to a 1.
And last but least, none of this is to persuade what you do on X. As I have always said with any social platform. Do what works for you. I just found after watching X while making my own decisions, well, a bit less appealing in many ways. But whatever you do, don’t make it your main focus or put all your eggs in any basket. Be careful out there. ;)
But as I always say, never say never. And that includes how I use X.
bobwp 
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