Using X to Up Your Social Media Marketing Game

Despite the appearance of competitors like Bluesky and some discourse about how X (formerly Twitter) is run these days, it’s still the leader in social media microblogging. In 2024, the platform had over 330 million monthly active users, showing that it’s still the premier destination for quick news updates and sharing thought snippets.

People say X is like a digital town square where everyone can hear what you say. That said, there are millions of other people shouting things at the same time, so your message can (and probably will) get drowned in all the noise.

But you’re not alone in trying to spread that message. What if, instead of struggling to get any traction, you had fans and organic advocates amplifying your message, engaging meaningfully with your content, and becoming true brand ambassadors?

Welcome to your macroblog guide to excelling at microblogging on X. We’ll explore the platform’s unique advantages for brand building and marketing and dive into practical tactics that actually work in 2025 so everyone hears what you say. I’ll even venture into some controversial approaches that challenge conventional wisdom but might just give you the edge you need.

Let’s take a look at what we’re learning today:

• Why X remains a marketing powerhouse despite platform changes.
• How to craft content that actually resonates with your target audience.
• Engagement strategies that build genuine community.
• Common pitfalls that sink most marketing efforts on X.
• How to measure what matters and optimize your approach.

Let’s start by going over why X still matters in today’s social media landscape.

Why X (Still) Matters for Brand Building and Marketing

Let’s get the elephant out of the room first: yes, X has gone through significant changes. And yes, many marketers have questioned whether it remains worthwhile. But the numbers tell a different story.

With over 330 million active users, X continues to provide unparalleled access to professionals, decision-makers, and influencers across virtually every industry.

The Real-Time Advantage

X’s greatest strength remains its real-time nature because platform thrives on immediacy. About 6,000 tweets are shared every second, creating constant opportunities to join relevant conversations. While this pace can feel overwhelming, it also means brands can capitalize on trending topics and timely events in ways impossible on slower-moving platforms.

Remember when Oreo tweeted, “You can still dunk in the dark” during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout? That simple, timely message generated more buzz than many multi-million dollar TV spots that night. A decade later, the principle still applies: brands that monitor conversations and contribute relevantly can achieve outsized visibility.

The Controversial Truth About X

I’ll say something many marketers don’t want to hear: X isn’t for every brand, and it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. Success here requires commitment, consistency, and a willingness to participate in unfiltered conversations. If your brand demands absolute message control or struggles with timely responses, you might be better served elsewhere.

But for those willing to embrace its challenges, X offers unique rewards, like the ability to build a direct, unmediated relationship with your audience that can translate to lasting brand loyalty and tangible business results.

Building direct relationships on X is easier because there are fewer barriers. Anybody can reply or quote your tweet anytime, and you can respond to them, creating organic and immediate conversation.

Crafting Content That Cuts Through the Noise

The median lifespan of a tweet is about 18 minutes. Let that sink in. In less time than it takes to watch a sitcom episode, your carefully crafted message has likely disappeared from most followers’ feeds.

This reality isn’t meant to discourage but to set proper expectations and to emphasize why content quality trumps quantity every time on X. If you don’t hook the reader, then your tweet might as well be lost to the ether.

Develop a Distinctive Brand Voice

The most successful brands on X have one thing in common: a consistent, recognizable voice that stands out from the corporate blandness that dominates most business accounts.

Take Wendy’s, whose sassy, irreverent persona has earned them over 3.6 million followers at the time of this writing. Their willingness to “roast” competitors and joke with followers transformed them from just another fast-food chain into a cultural phenomenon on social media.

But you don’t need to be provocative to be distinctive. Your brand voice might be educational, inspirational, or thoughtfully analytical. The key is consistency and authenticity. Your audience should recognize your tweets even without seeing your profile picture.

Here’s a little exercise: Write down three to five adjectives that define your brand’s personality on X. Use these as a filter when drafting content. If a tweet doesn’t align with these traits, it probably needs reworking.

The 80/20 Content Rule

One of the most common mistakes brands make is treating X as a promotional channel. Your followers didn’t sign up for a constant stream of product announcements and special offers.

Follow the 80/20 principle: 80% of your content should provide value to your audience through education, entertainment, or inspiration. Only 20% should explicitly promote your products or services.

For example, a marketing software company might share:

• Industry insights and trends (value).
• Quick tips for improving conversion rates (value).
• Behind-the-scenes glimpses of team culture (value).
• Customer success stories (value with soft promotion).
• Feature announcements and special offers (direct promotion).

This approach builds trust and positions your brand as a helpful resource, not just another company pushing products. Once you build trust with your followers, they’ll be more open to receiving promotional offers from you.

Visual Content: The Hidden Engagement Multiplier

Here’s a statistic that should change your approach immediately: tweets with images receive up to 94% more engagement than text-only posts. That little extra effort of creating an accompanying image has big returns.

Despite this, many brands still rely primarily on text. This represents a major opportunity for those willing to invest in visual content. You don’t need elaborate production to catch people’s eyes. Smartphone photos, simple graphics created with tools like Canva, or short video clips can dramatically increase your content’s stopping power as users scroll through busy feeds.

Text-only tweets are essentially invisible in today’s visually-dominated social landscape. If you’re not regularly incorporating images, GIFs, or videos, you’re handicapping your engagement potential from the start.

The Strategic Use of Hashtags

Hashtags remain a powerful discovery tool on X, but they’ve evolved from the chaotic free-for-all of early Twitter days. Tweets with 1-2 relevant hashtags perform significantly better than those with none or those stuffed with tags. Plus, hashtags still count against your character limit, so hashtag-stuffing means you have less space to write.

But here’s where many marketers go wrong: using trending hashtags that have nothing to do with their content just to gain visibility. This approach not only looks desperate but can actively damage your brand’s credibility.

Instead, focus on:

• Industry-specific hashtags relevant to your niche.
• Event or conference hashtags when participating in those conversations.
• Campaign-specific hashtags for your initiatives.
• Occasional trending topics, but only when you can contribute something genuinely valuable.

Remember, a hashtag is an invitation to a conversation. Make sure you have something worthwhile to add.

Building Engagement Through Authentic Interaction

A very common complaint I hear from marketers about X is: “We post regularly, but nobody engages with our content.”

This usually stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how the platform works. X isn’t a broadcasting medium; it’s a conversation. Brands that treat it like a one-way channel invariably struggle.

Proactive Engagement: The 80/20 Rule Again

Just as your content should follow the 80/20 value-to-promotion ratio, your engagement should follow a similar pattern: spend 80% of your time engaging with others’ content and only 20% creating and promoting your own.

This means:

• Responding to mentions and messages (obviously).
• Following relevant accounts in your industry.
• Liking and replying to posts that relate to your field.
• Asking genuine questions of your audience and industry peers.
• Retweeting valuable content with added commentary.

Many successful brands set aside 30 minutes daily for this kind of community engagement. The results compound over time, building relationships that translate to greater visibility when you do share your own content.

The Reply Strategy

When someone comments on your post, how you respond can either end the interaction or spark a meaningful conversation. Too many brands settle for generic “Thanks!” replies that kill momentum.

Think of your reply tab as a campfire. Somebody replying to your post is putting wood on the fire to keep it burning. Instead of pouring water to douse the flame, try feeding the flame by:

• Asking a follow-up question.
• Adding additional insight related to their comment.
• Tagging another relevant account that might add value.
• Using the opportunity to highlight a related resource.

Most people are more than happy to keep the conversation going, turning a single interaction into a thread that increases engagement and visibility.

Employee Advocacy: Your Secret Weapon

Here’s a startling statistic: only 3% of employees share their company’s content on social media, yet those shares generate 30% of a company’s total content engagement.

This represents an untapped goldmine for most organizations. Your team members often have networks that are not only larger than your brand account’s following but also more engaged because of the personal connection.

Brands that don’t have a formal employee advocacy program for X are leaving engagement on the table. Your most valuable social media assets are likely sitting in your office (or home offices) right now.

Implement a simple system to notify team members when important content is posted, making it easy for them to share with their personal networks. But never pressure employees to share. Authentic advocacy can’t be forced. If they’re reluctant to post, then retweets can be a good backup option.

Community-Building Beyond Your Profile

Effective X marketing extends beyond your own profile. Participate in relevant chats in your industry, join conversations around industry events, and engage in Communities (X’s group feature) related to your field.

These activities put your brand in front of new audiences in contexts where they’re already actively engaged with topics related to your expertise.

Metrics and Measurements: What Should I Look At?

Many marketers focus on follower count as their primary success metric on X. While audience size matters, it’s far from the most important indicator of effectiveness. Let’s get into the indicators that actually reflect your success and effectiveness.

The KPIs That Actually Drive Business Value

Focus your measurement efforts on these key performance indicators:

• Engagement Rate: This percentage (engagements divided by impressions) tells you how compelling your content is to those who see it. A small account with a high engagement rate often delivers more value than a large one with minimal interaction.
• Link Clicks & Traffic: If driving website visits is a goal, track how many users click through from your X content. Use UTM parameters to identify this traffic in your web analytics.
• Mentions & Sentiment: Monitor how often your brand is mentioned organically and assess whether the sentiment is positive, neutral, or negative. Sudden changes in mention volume or sentiment can signal opportunities or brewing problems.
• Conversions (where applicable): While harder to attribute directly to organic social, track whether increases in X activity correlate with downstream conversions like sign-ups, downloads, or purchases. You can do this with UTM links that can tell you which sales come from X users.

Of course, this isn’t an end-all, be-all list. You can add or remove metrics according to your business needs and what you want to achieve on X.

Tools for Effective Measurement

X’s native analytics provide solid baseline metrics for most brands, though premium accounts now get more detailed data. For deeper insights, consider these tools:

• Social Media Management Platforms: Tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Buffer provide comprehensive analytics dashboards that often offer more visualization options and exportable reports than native analytics.
• Specialized Listening Tools: For brands heavily invested in X, tools like Brandwatch, Meltwater, or more affordable options like Brand24 can track mentions, sentiment, and industry conversations beyond just your own account’s performance.
• Google Analytics: Don’t forget to connect your social efforts to web analytics. Set up Goals in Google Analytics to track how X traffic converts compared to other channels.

The most sophisticated marketers don’t look at these metrics in isolation. They track trends over time and correlate social performance with broader business outcomes.

Common Mistakes That Tank Your X Marketing Efforts

Blunders on X do happen, and making a mistake can make you look like a fool in front of the entire world. Here are some common mistakes on X that you should avoid to avoid missteps and PR problems.

The Automation Trap

Automation tools can be valuable time-savers, but they’re a double-edged sword. Over-automation leads to content that feels robotic and disengaged from the real-time nature of X.

The New England Patriots learned this lesson the hard way when their automated system thanked a user with a racial slur in their handle by posting an image of a jersey with that offensive term. The PR damage was immediate and severe.

Use automation selectively for scheduling content and basic metrics tracking, but always ensure a human reviews anything going out under your brand name. Essentially, you should never be asleep at the wheel to prevent massive fumbles like that.

Hashtag Blunders

Hashtags require careful consideration. Before launching a branded hashtag, have multiple people review it for potential misreadings or unfortunate interpretations.

The classic example remains Susan Boyle’s album launch hashtag #Susanalbumparty, intended to read as “Susan album party” but widely misinterpreted in a much cruder way. By the time her team corrected it, the internet was already having a field day at her expense.

Similarly, never hijack trending hashtags related to serious news events or social movements for promotional purposes. Kenneth Cole’s attempt to use the #Cairo hashtag (trending due to political unrest in Egypt) to promote a fashion collection was universally condemned as tone-deaf and opportunistic.

Cross-Platform Copy-Paste

Each social platform has its own language and format. One of the quickest ways to signal that you don’t understand X is by directly cross-posting content from other platforms.

When Instagram posts are auto-shared to X, they appear as bare links without image previews. Facebook posts get awkwardly truncated due to character limits. These posts stand out, and not in a good way.

Take the time to craft native content for X that respects the platform’s format and culture. It’s better to post less frequently with platform-appropriate content than to flood your feed with poorly formatted cross-posts. At the very least, modify your content to take advantage of each format’s strengths and weaknesses.

Ignoring the Temperature of the Room

Before launching hashtag campaigns or calls for user engagement, assess the current sentiment around your brand. The New York Police Department’s #myNYPD campaign asked people to share positive experiences with officers. Instead, it was flooded with images of police misconduct and negative interactions.

This doesn’t mean you should never run engagement campaigns, but be realistic about your brand’s public perception first. Build goodwill and trust before asking for broad public participation. If your brand reputation is bad and you launch an engagement campaign, that’s like putting your arm in a tiger’s cage. It won’t end well.

Leveling Up Your X Strategy: Top Tips to Follow

You know what not to do, it’s time to learn what to do. Follow these tips to maximize the value you get out of your X profile.

Profile Optimization

Your profile is usually the first impression users have of your brand. Make sure it’s complete and compelling with these steps:

• Use a high-quality profile photo (usually your logo) and header image.
• Write a concise bio that explains what you do and showcases your brand personality.
• Include a website link, and consider updating it for specific campaigns.
• Pin your most important content at the top of your profile.

Take advantage of the pinned tweet feature. Many brands leave outdated content pinned for months, missing an opportunity to highlight current campaigns or top-performing content. The pinned is usually the first thing people see when they visit your profile, so make sure it’s something you want everyone to look at.

Audience Research and Targeting

Understand who your audience is on X specifically because other platforms have different audiences with differing personalities. Here’s what you can do to understand your follower base:

• Review follower demographics in X Analytics.
• Create Lists of competitors, industry influencers, and engaged customers.
• Use social listening to identify topics and language that resonate with your target audience.
• Develop simple personas to guide your content creation.

The better you know your X audience, the more relevant your content will be. This targeted approach builds a community of the right followers rather than just accumulating numbers.

Content Calendar with Flexibility

Balance planned content with real-time engagement to ensure you don’t miss out on genuine interactions with your followers:

• Create a content calendar for regular posts and campaigns.
• Leave space for spontaneous, timely content.
• Map content to industry events, seasons, and your marketing calendar.
• Include a mix of formats: text, images, videos, polls, etc.

The most effective X strategies combine the consistency of planned content with the agility to join relevant conversations as they emerge.

Community Building Through Interaction

As we’ve covered multiple times before, building genuine connections and a community around your brand is one of the best ways to ensure your brand is visible. Make engagement a daily habit by doing these things:

• Set aside 20-30 minutes daily for proactive engagement.
• Reply to mentions and comments with thoughtful responses.
• Join or host chats related to your industry.
• Create and nurture Lists to organize your feed.
• Recognize and highlight user-generated content.

Remember that every interaction is an opportunity to showcase your brand values and personality. A thoughtful reply to a critical comment can turn a detractor into an advocate.

Competitive Analysis and Trend Watching

Making mistakes is a learning opportunity, but who said it just had to be your mistakes? Use your competitors’ mistakes and successes to learn. Here’s how:

• Monitor competitors’ content and engagement.
• Track industry hashtags and conversations.
• Watch for emerging trends you can meaningfully contribute to.
• Note which content formats and topics drive engagement.

Use these insights to refine your approach, but don’t simply copy competitors. Finding your unique angle and voice is still essential so you don’t get accused of plagiarism.

Key Takeaways

You need more than viral stunts and quick hacks to build an effective presence and market products on X. Consistent execution and strong fundamentals are the keys to succeeding on this platform. Here are four key lessons to keep in mind:

1. Value trumps promotion. Focus on educating, entertaining, or inspiring your audience rather than constantly selling.
2. Engagement is a two-way street. Spend as much time interacting with others as you do creating your own content.
3. Visual content dramatically increases impact. Incorporate images, GIFs, and videos regularly to stand out in busy feeds.
4. Consistency and authenticity build trust over time. Develop a distinctive voice and show up regularly for your audience.

The brands that thrive on X aren’t necessarily those with the biggest budgets or the largest teams. They’re the ones that understand the conversational nature of the platform and consistently provide value to their specific audience.

I’ll leave you with something to do: Spend some time this week to review your X strategy. Are you leaving enough room for spontaneous interactions and are you using pictures or videos to enrich your posts? Identify weak points in your X social media strategy and take steps to address them. Even if it’s a small improvement, those little tweaks will add up.