Before I became a Regional Director for Get Ahead, I spent years as a Buying Director for major UK retailers and then ran my own social media agency, with a specialism in Pinterest for business. I’ve used these platforms commercially. I’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and what’s simply not worth a busy business owner’s time. This series is my honest perspective on each one. No strategy guides. No content calendars. Just a straight answer to the question you’re probably already asking.
Is X (or Threads) Worth It for Your Business?
This post covers two platforms – X (formerly Twitter) and Threads – because the question for most SME owners is really the same for both: is there any text-based social platform worth my time?
The honest answer is: it depends on what your business actually runs on. And for most businesses, that answer points fairly clearly in one direction.
Let’s start with X, because it needs the most unpacking.
What happened to Twitter – and what X is now
Twitter was, for a long time, a genuinely valuable platform for a specific kind of business. Real-time conversation. Breaking news. Niche professional communities. Journalists, commentators, and thought leaders building audiences around ideas rather than images. If your business ran on opinion, commentary, or being part of an industry conversation, Twitter was often the right place to be.
Since Elon Musk’s acquisition in late 2022 and the subsequent rebrand to X, the platform has changed in ways that are hard to ignore. A significant portion of the brand advertising community left. Several high-profile communities migrated elsewhere. The atmosphere shifted – for some users, sharply so. Whether your view of those changes is positive, negative, or neutral largely depends on where you already stood politically and professionally.
What’s less disputed is the data. Active user numbers in the UK and Europe have declined. Advertising revenue dropped substantially in the period following the acquisition, though it has partially recovered. The platform has introduced new paid tiers, changed verification to a subscription model, and adjusted its algorithm in ways that reward certain types of content and users over others.
None of which makes X useless. But it does mean that the case for being there needs to be made more carefully than it once did.
Where X still has genuine value for SMEs
If your business operates in sectors where real-time conversation matters – journalism, PR, media, politics, financial services, tech, legal – X remains relevant. These communities haven’t all left, and the network effects that made Twitter valuable for them are still largely intact.
Thought leadership content – opinions, commentary, takes on industry news – can still find an audience on X in a way that doesn’t work as well on other platforms. LinkedIn has moved in this direction, but it still has a more formal register. X rewards a sharper, more direct voice, and for the right business owner, that’s a genuinely useful distinction.
Customer service is another area where X has historically performed well – the public, searchable nature of the platform means that businesses that respond quickly and helpfully build visible reputations. Some businesses still find real value in monitoring their brand name on X for exactly this reason.
The question for most SME owners isn’t whether X is still alive. It’s whether the people they most need to reach are still there – and what it would actually cost to show up properly..
The honest assessment for most SMEs
For most small and medium-sized businesses – particularly those in local services, retail, hospitality, professional services outside of the sectors listed above, or any business selling to a primarily consumer audience – X is probably not where your time is best spent right now.
That’s not a political statement about the platform. It’s a practical one. The audience has fragmented. The organic reach is limited. And the content format – short, text-based, fast-moving – requires a particular kind of consistent presence that many business owners simply don’t have the bandwidth to maintain effectively.
If you were getting genuine value from Twitter before 2022 – leads, referrals, meaningful conversations with potential clients – it’s worth asking whether that’s still happening at the same rate. If it is, stay. If it isn’t, that tells you something. If you were never really sure whether Twitter was working, this is probably the moment to stop asking the question and redirect that energy somewhere more productive.
A note on X if you’re already there
One thing worth saying clearly: if you have an established X presence that’s working – an engaged following, regular interactions, content that’s performing – there’s no reason to abandon it. Sunk time isn’t a reason to stay, but genuine current value is. The businesses I’d encourage to think hardest about X are the ones maintaining a presence out of habit or obligation rather than evidence. Posting into a void on any platform is a poor use of time. On X in 2025, that risk is higher than it used to be.
And what about Threads?
Threads launched in July 2023 as Meta’s answer to X – a text-based social platform built on Instagram’s infrastructure, designed to feel like Twitter at its best without the turbulence of recent years. It grew extraordinarily fast in its first week, then settled back as the initial curiosity faded.
Where is it now? Quietly growing, with a user base that skews towards people who were already Instagram users and wanted a text-based space that felt less fraught than X. The atmosphere is generally warmer and less combative. The algorithm is still being shaped.
For SMEs, the honest verdict on Threads right now is: watch and wait. The platform is not yet at the scale or maturity where it makes sense to invest significant time in building a presence from scratch. If you’re already active on Instagram, posting to Threads requires minimal additional effort and may be worth doing simply for visibility. But as a primary channel? Not yet. The more interesting question is what Threads becomes over the next two to three years, particularly if X continues to lose ground in certain communities. It’s a platform worth keeping an eye on without yet feeling obligated to commit to.
A final thought
X has changed. Threads is still finding its feet.
For most SMEs, the honest answer is that text-based social platforms are not where your primary effort should go right now – unless your business genuinely runs on conversation, commentary, and real-time presence in a professional community that’s still active there.
If that’s you, X may still be worth it. If it isn’t, that’s not a gap in your strategy. It’s a reasonable decision based on where your audience actually is. The question was never whether these platforms are interesting. It’s whether your customers are there – and whether showing up properly is a price you can realistically pay.
If you’re reassessing where your business should be showing up – and what that should actually look like – it’s one of the most useful conversations you can have. I’m always happy to think it through with you.
I’m Vicky McKenna, Regional Director for Get Ahead in Oxfordshire.
If you’d like a conversation about where your business should be showing up, I’d love to hear from you – please get in touch via vicky@getaheadva.com.
Next in the series: Is Reddit Worth It for Your Business?
If you missed Part 1 of this series discussing Facebook, you can find it here. Part 2 – on Pinterest – is here. And Part 3 about Twitter is here.