Roger Villareal’s Post

This is absolutely spot on from Charlotte Tobitt. People would be amazed how little traffic is generated by Twitter links. We're talking single digit percentages. My own theory, backed only by hunch and anecdote, is that most of the nice, normal people have left the platform now. I used to get 100+ RTs and lots of human replies for football articles back in the Golden Age (circa 2010-14) but by 2016/17 that number had crashed for all but the most outlandish or lubricated takes. It is entirely possible, of course, that people slowly figured out that I wasn't a very good journalist, but I could see it happening to others as well. I'm fairly sure that most of the humans still posting there (and what percentage of accounts are even human?) are either far right and angry, far left and angry or journalists (who are generally born angry). Or perhaps some combination of the above. You can say that it's 'better to be in the room' but I don't want to be in that room. Do you? I don't know if anything will ever replace what it was ten years ago, but I also don't know if anything really needs to replace it. I broadly regret sharing my every waking thought for over a decade and, since I shut my account down in 2020, I'm much happier. I read more, I'm less angry (maybe not being a journalist helped too) and I get more done. I opened a new account to promote a podcast in 2021 but I just couldn't keep it up. I'd write something, ask myself who it could upset, ask myself what the worst possible scenario was (cancellation? death threats?) weigh up the potential benefits (very little, see linked article) and then I'd shrug my shoulders and turn it off. It was a wonderful thing and without it I have no idea what I'd be doing for a living, but I'm happier just to post here every now and then so that no-one thinks I've died.

Interesting move from The Guardian. There’s no doubt X is nowhere near the platform Twitter was in its pomp, but it still carries influence & remains the most likely social platform for news to spread rapidly. Many clients I work with are questioning whether X is still a platform worth ploughing resource into. My response is: “What are you intending to use it for & what do you aim to achieve?” Then decide if it still has a place in your comms mix. You don’t have to be on every channel - especially if you have sparse resources overseeing your comms channels. #X #Guardian #SocialMedia https://lnkd.in/eSqUsb4c

Listen to your audiences and be on the platforms where they are. They probably aren't on Bluesky, at least not yet. Bluesky is nearing 20 million users, while X still has roughly 250 million monthly users, Threads has 275 million and LinkedIn has 310 million. And those are just the text-based social platforms; to Sophia's point, audiences are gravitating far more toward social video, which is more engaging and lucrative, on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube ... each of which have more than a billion monthly users. Is Bluesky worth following? Absolutely. But until it shows the same kind of audience growth as other relevant platforms, we need to adjust our expectations accordingly.

Bluesky has a problem: journalists like it. Twitter was always the favourite online home for journalists and, as a result, had a ready base for a positive feedback loop. The more journalists are on there, the more they chat to each other, retweet each other etc. Bluesky reminds them of this era. On Twitter, journalists weren't the only people engaging with this content. For years, the Reuters Institute of Journalism's Digital News Report found that Twitter survived as one of the last bastions online where mainstream news accounts held a priority for *all* audiences. Being a blue-tick journalist or news outlet meant guaranteed attention, and a lot of us got used to a certain level of engagement as a result. As Musk took over, it felt like that engagement collapsed. The thing is, it was collapsing long before Musk. On the most active and popular platforms today - Instagram, TikTok and YouTube - news brands are not what people want. People want "personalities" - and this shift began years ago. The translation for that is they want individuals. Humans. People who begin to feel like friends. And they want to consume their content as video, where they can see, hear and feel what they're saying. Social media video drives far more interactions than a text post, and that's why platforms love it. More interactions = more time spent in app = more advertising money. Famously, journalists have been incredibly slow to pivot to video platforms. A minority make their own Instagram and TikTok videos; I was an early adopter, but still remain one of a small few regularly doing it. The rush to Bluesky is happening partly because of a media yearning to cling to a form of social media that suited them, and not their audiences. By all means try it out - I am, and you can find me on there as well as Threads - but don't use it *again* at the expense of trying out a video platform that's going to futureproof you and reach audiences a lot more successfully.

As an media educator who focuses on literacy I feel the tension described below acutely. My students are much more interested in video content over text. I hand out 5 page articles for them to read and they tell me there’s too many words, it’s boring. They want digestible content and want to make digestible content. I want them to be interested in the possibility of making content that serves a greater good and civic conversation. While video and personality go a long way to build engagement, I worry that video, especially on social media platforms, only builds passing engagement and doesn’t lay the foundation for the deep thinking necessary to have deep engagement in ideas and civic discourse. To be a truth teller, to hold people in power accountable. To do that, they need extended passages of text that they can’t scroll rapidly past like they can video content. They need more than personality. But that’s not the world we live in and what the job market demands. How do I help my students see how engagement is not just measured by numbers of views or likes but what you do to empower people with information that makes a difference in the lives of others?

Absolutely agree. Bluesky feels like a comforting throwback for journalists: familiar, text-based, and built for the echo chambers we’re used to. But nostalgia can be a trap. The media landscape has fundamentally shifted, and audiences have made their preferences clear: they want authenticity, personality, and video-driven storytelling. Journalists and news brands need to adapt, not just for survival but to remain relevant. Platforms like TikTok thrive also because they put humans at the center of the narrative. People don’t just consume content; they connect with creators on a personal level. This is why even hard news finds traction when it’s delivered by individuals who can engage audiences with their voice, their expressions, and their unique perspectives. Additionally, I do think it’s worth considering that much of the discourse online about X/Twitter and the X-odus has felt rather one-sided and heavily Western/US/European in perspective. While the platform’s direction in recent years has undoubtedly been questionable, we should remain mindful of some of our regions, for whom X/Twitter remains a relevant platform.

Should you leave X (formerly Twitter)? A few weeks ago, I left, leaving just under 1,000 followers (likely some bots). Why? I’d simply had enough. For years, Twitter was a place to follow scientific discussions, share research, and connect. Each new follower felt like a small validation, despite the platform’s drama and toxicity—long before Musk’s takeover. Things changed drastically with Musk. There is a lot of information on what Musk did out there and I encourage you to look it up or read up on it. I recently spoke on a disinformation conference to a former Twitter employee, fired days into Musk’s leadership, who had worked on content moderation. My work in mis- and disinformation has shown me the risks of platforms where people gather and identify around identities and ideologies. Hashtags that once built communities now felt like battlegrounds. I tried to stay, reasoning that it was an “online civic duty” to be a “voice of reason”, but it began to feel like endorsement rather than resistance. So, I left. No regrets—just like leaving Facebook years ago. It’s good to see that outlets like The Guardian are also reconsidering their presence on X: https://lnkd.in/eKBwzCzu I was also happy to see that colleagues start questioning that the European Commission, along with other institutions and public figures, remains there. I think it’s about time that we discuss the merits and problems with this. And this won’t be an easy discussion. X may slowly become a bubble of radical thought (many would argue that already happened). I haven’t been on Facebook for a long time but to me it already feels like a wasteland governed by radical thought and toxicity. For now, LinkedIn seems like a more civil platform, almost reminiscent of early Facebook (although my memory might paint it in a too colourful way). But I worry it could go the same way. Maybe the gathering around your own group and differentiation from other groups hasn’t fully started yet. Maybe “the radicals” will soon be bored agreeing with themselves and then come over to look for trouble. I have no idea how likely it is that someone (or Musk himself or, in the future, any of his 12 children) will buy LinkedIn and kick-off a similar development, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Many people in (search of) power know how important it is to control spaces where we connect. How we use these platforms matters more than ever.

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For the last few years, social media has been a game of musical chairs. People in corporate comms have been carefully weighing the relative merits of different platforms. The advice I've given others is to keep an eye on where your audience is active, and be ready to follow them if they move. For now, Twitter (or X) is still a place many organizations and mainstream personalities are present and active -- but the music may have just stopped. In what may be prescient, The Guardian newspaper said today that it will no longer post to Twitter. Their full announcement is worth a read. Note that it draws relevant distinctions about how they view the platform for news gathering versus news distribution. So is the "Xodus" real? Will it affect where your organization wants to be on-line? My advice: Just like in the game, listen for the music, and be ready in case your audience decides it feels more comfortable somewhere else.

"If [legacy media companies] are going to shake down the tech companies, the smart thing to do would be to use the money to build a dynamic, alternative media ecosphere, one that combined the best of the old and the new and that rethought journalism’s purpose from the ground up: to serve the citizens of our staggering democracy." "[Peter] Greste (and others) are right to insist on the importance of reliable public interest journalism to a functioning democracy, but here is the real problem: too many in the industry are still in denial about how bad things have become in the legacy media. Most will acknowledge that the industry is struggling financially—big concession!—but few will deal with the fact that the problem goes much deeper than the business model." Australian author Tim Dunlop writes that today's crisis in journalism goes far deeper than the simple "the tech companies are stealing our content" narrative. I agree: we need to rethink the role that journalism plays in society. He's right when he says the purpose is "to serve the citizens of...democracy." I'd put it another way: Journalism helps create social capital, which is essential for a functioning democracy. But while journalism may be necessary to create social capital, it is not sufficient. Social capital, or "community," is the connection that exists between citizens of a democracy. These connections cannot be made through content alone. I'm a fan of the TV show The Bear. That doesn't mean I am connected to everybody else who watches The Bear. It's not until I enter a space (a convention, a discussion group, a message board, etc.) and connect with other fans of The Bear that I join a community. Content (journalism) plays a role in creating social capital, but it does not produce social capital all by itself. We also need to build spaces that facilitate connections. Media outlets that employ journalists can create social capital by hiring people (community managers) who create spaces for their audience members to connect. Rather than just talk about how important journalism is for a functioning democracy, media outlets should actually DO more to create social capital by building community. In other words, the role of journalistic media outlets in the 21st century is not just to inform people; it's also to connect people. Here's the kicker: When you start building community, you also open your organization up to a ton of new streams of revenue. Which, of course, journalists desperately need. (To illustrate, here's a list of "50 Ways to Monetize a Community": https://lnkd.in/dS_MidbB.) Dunlop's right. Journalists can't simply complain about big tech without fundamentally changing not just their revenue model, but also reimagining their role in society. They need to build community. https://lnkd.in/dHbAijup