Andrew Hutchinson
Source: www.socialmediatoday.com, August 2024
X has rolled out its updated Audience Insights tab for X Premium users, which now includes a range of new elements, including info on your audience’s age, gender, and country of origin, among others.
And the updated display looks pretty good:
As you can see in these screenshots, X has not only added new analytics features, but it’s also updated the chart formats, making it easier to use the data provided by gleaning relevant notes.
X News Daily also shared this video of X’s updated analytics tools back in June.
As you can see, aside from the demographic info, there’s also insight into active user times of your audience, so you can better plan your posting process.
Many of these insights have been available via third-party apps for some time, but X is finally making the effort to build its own, official data tools, in order to assist in strategic planning.
It’s worth also noting that X did once offer more advanced data analytics tools, but it retired most of them back in 2020, in favor, it said at the time, of an improved analytics dashboard. Which, of course, never came.
As I’ve noted previously, this is a significant opportunity for X, in providing native, advanced analytics and posting tools, similar to those available in apps like Hootsuite. Because let’s face it, most social media marketers use third-party posting tools like this to primarily schedule posts for X, which is why building a native, custom platform, with more insights, sourced directly from X itself, may prove more valuable to marketers.
The only catch is that these advanced analytics are only available to X Premium subscribers. But then again, this could be a key selling point that will get more marketers and publishers back on board, if X is able to right the ship, and stem the current exodus of users.
Or maybe just the negative perception of the app. And that, of course, is largely within the domain of X owner Elon Musk, who continues to amplify divisive, inflammatory, and often totally incorrect reports in his app.
Musk’s view is that this is his right, as part of his free speech push, to say whatever he wants, and boost whatever he feels like in the app. Musk believes that all thoughts and ideas should be openly debated, even if that means amplifying some that eventually prove to be incorrect.
And in a binary sense, he’s right, he can share and boost whatever he likes, within the limits of the law. But the consequence of doing so is that you may put others at risk, by blaming them, or framing them as enemies, sometimes without due cause, because you’re boosting incorrect reports. And then, some people, some businesses, simply won’t want to be associated with you, or support your app as a result.
Which Musk and Co. are now feeling, but maybe, if Elon scales back the rhetoric, X could get back on track, and boost its appeal to marketers and publishers once again.
I mean, I doubt it, as Musk is very clearly against the “mainstream media,” while if anything, he’s sharing more incendiary remarks over time.
