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When it comes to X or Twitter people are clearly divided.
Some people hate X/Twitter, others love it. Both of them are right for different reasons.
Actually there are many pros and cons of X/Twitter.
Here you’ll find plenty of them plus resources to actually use it.
X vs Facebook – What’s better?
First off Facebook is still the dominant social media outlet.
Why even consider X/Twitter and not focus on the most important global player?
On Facebook you mostly follow friends and family you already know.
X/Twitter gets used to follow mostly strangers you are interested in.
X is still so popular – even after more than 15 years – that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg finally started his own version of it: Threads!
Before you join Threads instead of X be warned though. Why?
You can’t delete your Thread account unless you also disable your Instagram profile.
You can also follow and read news on Facebook itself.
I joined Facebook back in 2008 but never could force myself to use it until I became seriously ill.
Then I started wasting time there. Yet Twitter got me hooked from day one. Why?
Indeed I’ve been using Twitter for personal and business purposes since 2008!
It can be a powerful link sharing, social networking and crowdsourcing tool for many.
These are just the most obvious benefits of X/Twitter or reasons to use it.
Below I offer you a wider variety of 50+ tools and resources to use X-Twitter effectively.
X/Twitter pros and cons
Not interested in the free tools and resources?
Just want a quick overview of the X-Twitter pros and cons for personal and business use?
Here they are in no particular order:
| pros | cons | |
| There is a lot of traffic generation potential on X/Twitter. | Traffic generation works mostly for mainstream opinions. | |
| Billionaire Elon Musk acquired and stabilized X/Twitter. | Elon Musk’s and his of X/Twitter is very controversial. | |
| Meeting like-minded individuals globally is easy. | Getting into trouble with trolls and bombarded by bots is likely. | |
| Updates are relatively short and thus not as labor-intensive. | X/Twitter can be a time-suck despite the shortness of updates. | |
| You can get the latest local and global news quickly. | You can get inundated with depressing bad news. | |
| It’s easy to follow different types of people by way of lists. | You can get overwhelmed by the sheer number of updates. | |
| X/Twitter does not require real names but let’s you verify your account. | Fake accounts are a problem despite crackdowns and verification. | |
| X/Twitter gives your business free publicity. | People rarely buy directly on or from X/Twitter. | |
| No political ads are allowed on X/Twitter. | Donald Trump and other provocateurs spread division. | |
| X/Twitter is great for free speech and self-expression. | You can get easily persecuted for your X/Twitter updates. | |
| There are a lot of advanced features like threads e.g. | Many of the more advanced features have to be paid for. |
Why list the pros and cons of X/Twitter?
Why did I start to use Twitter personally?
I did long before it was rebranded as X.
How did it work for my own business ever since?
I started using Twitter back in 2008! No joke!
Twitter wasn’t my favorite tool in the beginning.
It took me some time to get it or even to understand why I may need Twitter and what the pitfalls are.
Yet here I am 15+ years later and I still have a large following on X/Twitter.
Sometimes I still wonder why still use X! Then I return to this post!
Yes, ever since Elon Musk took over the reign on Twitter and renamed it to X the service has degenerated quite a bit.
There are many reasons for this – one simply being profitability at all costs and the firing of most employees.
- Personally I now prefer Mastodon, the “federated” alternative to X. It’s like WordPress for microblogging.
- Many people also flocked to Bluesky, an alternative service who has also Twitter founder in its team.
- Facebook’s Threads got some attention as well but quickly lost the initial hype.
Yet I still offer X/Twitter content writing and social media management services for clients all over the world!
That’s also why I came up with a X/Twitter pros and cons list! You have to decide for yourself!
So here are the pros, cons and X/Twitter tools to make the experience of it much more rewarding.
Indeed X-Twitter is a lot like Facebook although it’s a different concept.
Both sites do not necessarily result in significant referral traffic or other benefits you can measure easily.
Unless of course you are already a very popular “influencer” or “go viral”.
I wanted to share my thoughts on X-Twitter to help you decide whether it makes sense or not.
Additionally I collected X/Twitter related tools and resources.
They enable you to answer the original question: use it or not?
You decided you actually want to use X.com despite the potential cons?
Then you will find plenty of ideas how to use it below:
Reasons to use X/Twitter
As you might suspect there are plenty of reasons to use X/Twitter.
It often depends on who you are and what you do for a living. Anybody in
- publishing
- journalism
- blogging
- marketing
will probably use it all the time.
Many other business users probably also will but here already there are different opinions.
Some brands consider X/Twitter to be less important. Why?
Other social networking tools are much larger both by sheer user numbers and actual engagement.
Yet Facebook and Instagram – both owned by controversial billionaire Mark Zuckerberg – are walled gardens that hide their content from Google.
YouTube is also huge but not a social network at all.
In contrast X/Twitter updates are usually public and open for Google to crawl and index.
Why? They reached a deal to display updates that matter back then. What does that mean?
Google will sometimes show your updates in search results.
Yet Google does not index all X/Twitter content!
It only does show those updates that have been linked to or shared by others in most cases.
Unless your account is very powerful in general.
X/Twitter is treated like any other website when it comes to indexing and ranking.
Thus linked to pages get an additional boost on Google.
I’ve compiled links providing both actual personal stories of positive X/Twitter usage.
In essence some of the pros can be viewed as cons and vice versa.
Yet let’s start with the positive or optimistic view on things.
The fact that billionaire Elon Musk has taken over and saved the financially struggling site was good news at first.
Additionally here are some benefits that are objectively there.
Over the recent years some new useful features have been added.
- X/Twitter Communities allow you to create user groups or smaller semi-private audiences.
- Subscriptions let you charge for (additional) updates.
- With Grok you can use a “humorous” AI assistant on X directly.
Here are some more advantages of X/Twitter use and/or reasons to use it:
- An Example of Twitter’s Real-Life ROI
- How To Make $500,000 A Year On Twitter
- Twitter Sues the Government for Violating Its First Amendment Rights
- The Trump bump: Twitter is getting a second look from brands
- How to Use Twitter to Your Advantage as a Journalist
- Twitter Saves Man From Egyptian Justice
Reasons to ignore X/Twitter
X/Twitter is indeed controversial to some extent even after many years of existence.
That may be the reason why it never went mainstream like Facebook.
When outspoken and often controversial billionaire Elon Musk of took over it got worse.
The new owner renamed it to X and even more drama ensued!
Here are some personal stories and also die hard facts that may discourage you from actually engaging on X/Twitter.
Make sure to find out what the downsides are.
These issues may convince you to ignore X/Twitter altogether!
You need to know these disadvantages before you actually plunge in and take a deep dive on X/Twitter.
I don’t want you to waste your time and money in case you aren’t really convinced. Why exactly?
In short X/Twitter has lots of issues. Some of them worse than others.
None of them has been devastating yet but they add up. There is a lot of
- fear
- anger
- hate
spreading on the platform. The algorithm rewards engagement no matter the cost.
This way obnoxious messages that get a ton of resistance get pushed additionally!
Also bots and automated accounts are creating a lot of
- noise
- spam
- fakes
Censorship was an ongoing issue that even infuriated billionaire Elon Musk.
Back then he was mostly known for Tesla and SpaceX.
He repeatedly criticized the site before finally acquiring it.
It provoked him to buy enough Twitter shares to make him the largest shareholder and de facto owner.
Now the opposite is the case. X/Twitter allows hate speech towards minorities under the free speech umbrella.
A related issue over the years has been the involvement of Saudi Arabia – both legal and illegal. Why is that a problem?
SA is an absolute monarchy keen on subduing democratic opposition both online and offline.
You can even get banned immediately for a petty offense like a joke despite having more than 150k followers.
Personally I had to limit my engagement on X/Twitter in recent years because the sheer onslaught of
- negativity
- outrage
- hate
- bad news
- propaganda
exhausted me. I’m not alone.
Many left ever since. Others simply use it less.
With Elon Musk firing most Twitter employees after taking over and renaming the platform to X many issues got even worse.
Now I get the most engagement from SPAM accounts peddling porn.
X/Twitter clients
X/Twitter clients are tools that allow you to access X by other means than the X.com or Twitter.com website itself.
Here are some of the most popular tools that could be used as “clients”.
Some of them are broader platforms allowing you to access multiple social media sites.
I’ve used most of them myself – especially XPro (formerly TweetDeck) – regularly.
The X/Twitter HP is a bit hard to use as you get easily overwhelmed with updates.
The new X or Twitter layout is also quite controversial.
The first two clients are ideal for business use and marketing campaigns. Make sure not to over-automate though!
Hootsuite and Buffer also work with many other social media sites, not just X-Twitter.
- Hootsuite: Social Media dashboard for teams
- Buffer – “a smarter way to share on social media”
- X/Twitter’s own mobile apps for Android and iPhone
X/Twitter howto’s, tutorials and resources
When you finally decide to use X/Twitter for business and get serious about it you’ll notice that it is harder that it might appear at first.
It’s not just about sharing links or short updates and forgetting about them.
You won’t have an audience just by tweeting, especially when you solely broadcast instead of engaging.
You need to treat X/Twitter like a blog and build an audience first.
Do you want use X/Twitter for business?
You can’t simply sell to your followers or that automation of updates won’t suffice.
Make sure to invest some time and effort into your X/Twitter account.
Don’t just get frustrated after a few days or weeks. It might take a while before it works for you.
X/Twitter use for business is actually pretty hard.
That’s why I also offer social media management services for X/Twitter where I
- engage
- curate
- build an audience.
on behalf of clients. It’s not unlike ghost writing but I don’t hide the fact that I’m a social media professional.
I usually add my name (e.g. “Tad”) to updates so they aren’t just bot-like anonymous messages.
I build real and lasting relationships with followers by engaging actively.
Additionally I engage proactively with those who not yet follow but already talk about relevant topics.
This differs from the typical but flawed one to many megaphone approach.
Here are some additional guides on how to use X/Twitter on third party sites:
- Using X (formerly Twitter)
- What is X (Formerly Twitter) and How Does it Work?
- X (Twitter) marketing: A SUPER complete guide
- How to Market on X (formerly Twitter)
- Understanding How the X (Twitter) Algorithm Works
- 12 Ways to Get the Most out of X (Twitter) Advanced Search
- X (Twitter) Announces Changes to Block Feature
- The ultimate guide to Twitter for business
How do you use X/Twitter?
Now of course the main reason why I use X/Twitter is to inform you of my eating habits!
No, just kidding, rather to indoctrinate you with my social SEO propaganda.
It does only make sense when I have enough people to preach to.
OK, follow me now in case you are really serious about the SEO 2.0 cult!
- How do you use X/Twitter?
- Do you use a client?
- If yes, which one?
- What are you using X/Twitter for?
- What do you speak about actually?
- What are you doing?
- What is your user name?
In case it makes sense I’ll
- follow you
- @reply to you
- retweet you!
Did I miss some valuable links? Tell me on X/Twitter!
This list will gets updated continuously for 15+ years.
Want more? Try 101 updates on how to use X/Twitter.
Still not convinced you can use X/Twitter for business purposes but you’d like to?
Stuck with a personal account and struggling to keep it alive?
I can take care of your X/Twitter account for you! I will
- write content for your X account
- engage your audience and community
- answer questions people might ask even before they find you!
I’m a professional blogger and social media manager and have been using X or Twitter successfully since 2008.
* (CC BY-ND 2.0)