Historically speaking, a social media platform being viable long-term without a groundswell of youth support is extremely rare—extremely rare doesn’t even begin to explain it. Outside of LinkedIn, I can’t think of a successful platform that started without the buy-in of the younger crowd (age 22 and younger). Also, considering its recent shift to vertical video, its new emphasis on conversational tone, and even its new streaming feature, LinkedIn is doing everything possible to attract younger audiences.
Why am I saying all of this? Well, it’s that time of year when news outlets report surges in a new social platform’s numbers, and organizations are trying to decide if they should make the leap and join. The so-called “mass exodus” of X’s platform has only led to more questions. Everyone wants to know what’s next, but I can’t help but feel that people are looking backward for their answer instead of forward.
A Look at the Contenders
Over the last few weeks, there have been multiple reports that the user bases of Threads, Bluesky and even Mastodon have been growing. So, the question is, are there any real contenders to X’s throne, or are we left with a field of pretenders?
We’ve been here before.
- Mastodon (2022): Twitter’s management change had just become official, and the natives were restless. Then someone discovered Mastodon, a “free, open-sourced, decentralized social media platform” that had been around since 2016. In theory, it sounds all right, but practically, it was way too complicated to be adopted widely. It soon fizzled and went back to its niche base.
- Threads (2023): Meta’s “Twitter” Slayer promised to be everything Twitter used to be while keeping your followers from Instagram. I vividly remember accidentally launching our Threads account because I didn’t realize profile creation would be so seamless. That first night was great—our follower count grew at warp speed, and it felt like everyone was posting. Then, within a few weeks, there wasn’t an engaged community. With the lack of basic features and community presence, the app felt undercooked and lacked a legitimate ecosystem.
- Bluesky (2024): Originally led by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Blueksy recently picked up one million new followers in a single week. A fast-growing platform run by someone tied to warm memories of the Twitter you once loved seems like it can’t miss, right? Well, maybe one day. Right now, 21 million users aren’t nearly enough to make a platform feel lived in. In 2024, Facebook has 3 billion active users, Instagram has 2 billion, TikTok has 1.5 billion, and X has over 600 million.
I’ve kept you waiting long enough. We have no real contenders to overtake X’s position as the real-time, text-based social media king even if the crown upon its head is a bit tattered.
The Key Problem
This all comes back to my original point: the key thing all these channels lack is an active youth movement pushing the platform forward. Read any article about these new social media outlets, and you’ll notice they keep focusing on a current audience looking for an alternative to X.
I hate to break it to you, Twitter/X lost their younger audience years ago. According to Pew Research, in 2018, only 30% of teens used X often. Flash forward to 2023, and that number was at 20%. That’s a generation of people who aren’t looking for an alternative because they were never there.
What Should Higher Ed Do?
Should you launch an account on Bluesky right now? If you see value, give it a shot; but, make sure you do it with your expectations set in the right place. Channels like Bluesky are probably not the future of social media unless they undergo significant changes.
As they are now, these platforms are nostalgia acts for us aging millennials and journalists. They aren’t going to help you reach a new demographic because that younger audience has moved to other spaces. If you want to know what’s actually next, just keep paying attention to what they do.
Good luck!
