Twitter is now called X. Elon Musk made the change official on Monday: the bird logo has been replaced by a white X on a black square. A brand known worldwide, with its own verb, disappeared over a single weekend.
Three weeks earlier, on July 5, Meta launched Threads, a text-based app linked to users' Instagram accounts. It surpassed 100 million sign-ups in about five days.
We have been managing social media for businesses since the Raincity years in Vancouver, when a company having a Twitter account was still a novelty. This month marks the end of an era. It is also a period of considerable uncertainty, which presents real challenges for small businesses trying to decide where to post.
Where are users going now that Twitter has become X?
Users began leaving Twitter when Musk acquired it last October. Paid blue checkmarks, the removal of legacy verification badges in April and, at the start of this month, a limit on the number of posts users could read per day each prompted further departures.
Some moved to Mastodon, which is decentralized. The concept is appealing in principle, but difficult to explain to a café owner who must understand what a "server" is and why she needs to choose one.
Bluesky is also available, but it remains invitation-only. Without a code, access requires waiting.
Threads has the largest numbers because it draws on users' Instagram followers, and signing up takes seconds. Its features, however, remain limited: no web version, no hashtags, no feed limited to followed accounts, and no availability in the European Union. Current reports indicate that daily use has declined significantly since launch week. Wikipedia already has a Threads page with a detailed timeline, which illustrates how quickly the situation is evolving.
For Canadian businesses, there is an additional factor. The Online News Act received royal assent in June, and Meta has stated that it will remove news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada before the law takes effect. Google has stated that it will also remove links to Canadian news from search. Local newspapers and radio stations stand to lose a large share of their reach, and much of the community information people currently find on Facebook will become harder to locate.
The former central gathering place is therefore dividing into five or six distinct spaces, each with its own rules, audience and culture. It is not yet known which will remain relevant a year from now.
Which social networks should a small business choose?
One or two, managed properly. This recommendation is deliberately straightforward.
The choice itself is not complicated: go where your customers already are, not where the technology community is most active. For most local businesses in small Quebec towns, this remains Facebook, along with Instagram for anything visual, such as food, lodging, crafts and outdoor activities. For a B2B service, LinkedIn is appropriate. Businesses selling to a younger audience may consider TikTok.
Threads, X, Bluesky and Mastodon are probably not relevant for a small-town hardware store this year, though one of them may suit a technology consultant or a writer. Rather than following which network dominates the news cycle, consider where potential customers actually spend their time, and whether the business can maintain a weekly presence there sustainably.
Consistency matters more than presence. One Facebook page with a meaningful post every week achieves more than five accounts that have been inactive since March.
Why does the website remain the central hub?
Because social media accounts are rented, not owned. This month provides a clear reminder of a principle that has held true since the 2000s.
A platform can change its name, its algorithm, its rules, who sees a business's posts and even whether news appears at all in a given country. Businesses that built everything on Twitter saw their foundation shift in less than a year. Businesses in Canada that publish news-style updates on Facebook should monitor how the news block operates once it takes effect.
A website is the one online presence that no one else can rename: the domain, the content, the contact information and the hours belong to the business. Social media should direct visitors there. Posts are the conversation; the website is the address.
The other channel a business owns is its email list. A newsletter reaches people directly, without an algorithm in between. In our view, 300 local subscribers are worth more than 3,000 followers on a platform that determines who sees what.
Should the same content be posted on every network?
The same news, yes; identical text, no. As networks fragment, the simplest approach is to post identical content everywhere with a single click. Scheduling tools make this easy, but it is generally ineffective.
Each platform has its own conventions. A long caption that works on Facebook appears out of place on Threads. A series of hashtags that is standard on Instagram resembles spam on LinkedIn, and on Threads hashtags do not yet function. Each platform also treats links in posts differently.
The same announcement, and even the same photo, can be shared in two places. However, we recommend taking two minutes to adapt the text for each destination: shorter in one place, phrased as a question in another, with a different opening line. Audiences can tell when content has not been adapted for them.
How is the social media landscape likely to evolve?
Threads is unlikely to disappear despite the decline in use. Meta has a very large Instagram user base to direct toward it, and the missing features are expected to be added. X will remain, smaller in some circles and more prominent in others. Bluesky will likely find its audience once it opens more broadly. It appears unlikely that any of these platforms will become the single gathering place that Twitter was for a time.
A return to that model also appears unlikely. In our assessment, a fragmented landscape is now the norm.
For a small business, this is manageable. Being present everywhere has never been necessary. The priorities are to be present where customers are, to do so effectively, and to maintain a website that connects everything. If maintaining one or two networks properly requires more time than is available, the task can be entrusted to a provider of social media management services.