Is X Really Reaching Record High Usage?

Over the weekend, X experienced a surge in usage following the news of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. However, when diving deeper into the specifics, there are some discrepancies in the data provided by X owner, Elon Musk. Musk recently claimed that X reached a new “record high” in usage, with user-seconds hitting 417 billion globally. While this sounds impressive, it raises some questions about the accuracy of these numbers.

Breaking down Musk’s claims, it is revealed that users spent an average of 27.8 minutes on X per day, with 250 million daily active users. This is certainly a significant amount of time spent on the platform, but it falls short of X’s previous claim in March that users were spending an average of 30 minutes per day on the app. This raises doubts about whether this is truly a record high in terms of user engagement.

Moreover, Musk’s assertion that 93 billion user seconds were recorded in the U.S. alone equates to an average of 15.5 minutes per user. While this is not a negligible amount of time, it does not seem particularly high in terms of per-person usage. The conflicting figures and inconsistencies in X’s reporting make it difficult to draw any concrete conclusions about the actual reach and resonance of the platform among its users.

From a marketing perspective, advertisers rely on accurate and transparent data to assess the effectiveness of their campaigns on X. They need to know how many people they can reach, how long users are engaging with the platform, and which elements they are interacting with. However, the ambiguous and convoluted nature of X’s data makes it challenging for advertisers to make informed decisions about their marketing strategies on the platform.

If X truly wants to be transparent, as Musk claims, it needs to provide comprehensive usage data that includes detailed information about its user base. This would allow for greater scrutiny of the platform’s performance and help to alleviate concerns about the reliability of the reported figures. Without this level of transparency and accountability, it is difficult to ascertain the true impact and effectiveness of X as a social media platform.