Should academia exit X? Why is your institution still on Twitter/X?
Brands love to talk to their audiences, so when social media platforms began to offer a new, engaging and measurable way to connect with their stakeholders, brands rapidly flocked to new accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other sites in the early aughts. Since then, the social media landscape has mutated rapidly, spawning influencers, paid partnerships and increasingly polarized users based on algorithms and misinformation.
Higher education communicators recognized early that their primary demographic–young adults–loved social media, and flocked to create content on platforms targeting potential students, such as Instagram, Vine (remember that?), Snapchat and TikTok. At the same time, as older demos built community on other platforms, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, those became an opportunity to reach parents, alumni, government, industry and potential donors.
But one platform has taken a journey unlike any other. Launched in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, it saw exponential growth by 2012, rising to 330 million users by 2019. Twitter’s blue bird logo was everywhere, and the word “tweet” permanently entered the lexicon. Significantly, governments and politicians became active on Twitter, and in Canadian higher ed, a ministerial visit or funding launch became a perfect opportunity to tag a member of parliament or post a pic of the president shaking hands with a local mayor.
Yet, something started to curdle in 2020, when the pandemic struck. Twitter use soared, but misinformation and disinformation became a growing problem, and the service started fact-checking and marking tweets that were problematic. Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, and triggered a series of platform changes including account monetization, the removal of account pronouns and an AI chatbot. In 2023, Musk rebranded the site as “X” as accusations of unfettered hate speech, antisemitism and the targeting of journalist accounts grew. Increasingly, X was accused of pandering to extreme alt-right voices on topics including vaccination, the Jan. 6 coup attempt and transgender rights. Twitter had become toxic.
For higher ed institutions with a presence on Twitter/X, engagement rates in target audiences have been dropping or have plateaued at low levels for several years. Are our students or prospective students on X? Absolutely not. They’re on TikTok, Instagram or whatever the next thing is. Are our community partners or donors there? Possibly, but they are likely treading carefully in the increasingly murky online space, worried about the impact on their own brands. Are our faculty there? Some are (and may be keeping their institution’s media relations teams up at night) while others are actively protesting the increasingly right-wing, extremist voices on the platform and have started to migrate to other sites, like Bluesky or even alternate subscription platforms like Substack.
So, is your university or college still actively posting to Twitter/X–and why? Perhaps you’ve identified the key government or community accounts that you still want to interact with, and believe there is sufficient ROI to balance the potential risk of existing of an increasingly hostile environment. Maybe you’re betting on posting the most neutral, benign content possible, in hopes of avoiding the wrath of the trolls lurking beneath the platform’s surface…and you have clear guidelines and practices in place for when they inevitably pop up. Or, are you simply posting on X because…it’s a legacy practice and you have FOMO?
Is it time for academia to abandon X? Given that universities and colleges fundamentally exist to discover and share factual information, the platform’s refusal to fight misinformation seems diametrically opposed to academia’s core mission and vision. In the UK and Europe, many universities have already pulled back, either deleting their accounts or going silent. And if you’re staying to connect with media, some are already leaving, including NPR, the Guardian, the European Federation of Journalists. Yet, it still seems like organizations are waiting for either a rapid acceleration in departures or a “tipping point” event to drive them off the platform.
For higher ed institutions, is where you live on social media a moral as well as a business choice? As communicators and leaders, do you feel comfortable with your brand/reputation being associated with X? Do you have a plan in place if that association pulls you into the bog? Otherwise, have you thought about how to extricate yourself from X? It’s not impossible, and it could allow you to focus your social media resources on other, more beneficial platforms–and in the end, it may also help you sleep a little sounder. Bye-bye, Birdie.