X has shared some new insights into how users engage with school and education related trends, with a view to helping marketers tap into back-to-school discussions in the app.
And some of the data points are… surprising.
First off, X says the back-to-school conversation in the app increased by 3% last year, versus 2022.
Okay, just to break that down a little further, as X notes in the above graphic, back-to-school related discussion in the app, between January and December 2023, totaled 1.9 million posts, which represents a 3% growth in related conversation year-over-year.
According to X, there are 500 million posts submitted in the app every day, so 1.9 million posts, over a 12-month period, is ridiculously low.
Now, these 1.9 million posts are U.S. only, so the comparison is not directly matched against that full 500 million daily updates. But even, that’s a very small amount of relative conversation in the app, even at 3% growth.
For comparison, TikTok ran a five day back-to-school shopping campaign last month, which resulted in 6.3 million orders placed for products advertised during the push. In five days. The fact that X only saw 1.9 million posts in a year isn’t that great of a selling point.
Though this point is even more surprising:
X claims that it has 1.5x more monthly active users who are students compared to other platforms.
That’s despite X having a quarter of the users that Instagram does, and Snapchat being far more popular with teens than virtually any other social app.
As such, the specifics here are important. The data point above is based on a Global World Index study of 25k American social media users, with the question posed to participants being: “What is your current working status?” Based on this, 1.5x more people who indicated that they use X also indicated that they are students.
I’m not sure that’s an accurate model of assessment for this data point, but according to X, this is enough to claim that it has a lot more students than other apps. Which, I would hazard a guess, is probably not correct.
Finally, X notes that the majority of back-to-school discussion in the app is among younger users.
“With its growing popularity among Gen Z and Millennials, X has become a trusted resource, influencing trends and guiding purchase decisions throughout the back-to-school journey. In fact, 60% of the #BackToSchool audience on X is between the ages of 24 and 34, a demographic eager and ready to spend.”
Except, X’s popularity isn’t growing, in fact, X hasn’t added any daily active users in almost two years, so I’m not sure what exactly this stat is referencing. But according to X’s data, younger users in the app are engaging with back-to-school related content, which could offer opportunity to reach this audience in the app.
Yeah, as you can tell, I’m a little skeptical of X’s numbers, but that’s because X has repeatedly shared and amplified data points which have been conflicting, inaccurate, and/or misleading since Elon Musk took over at the app.
I don’t believe that X is the best platform for back-to-school marketing, in a broader sense, though it may well offer niche appeal to certain brands and businesses seeking to reach a specific audience.
At 250 million daily actives, there’s clearly opportunity there, but I’m not sure that these stats accurately represent the scale of that potential.
You can check out X’s full back-to-school data overview here.
