In search of the Twitter phoenix: The final score.

Where is X heading and which social media platforms are gaining importance? In the fifth and, most likely, final part of our research, we take a look at the most frequently used social media channels by Swiss media professionals in June 2024. After a three-month break, we resumed our research and found that X remains in the lead, while Bluesky and Threads are hardly used at all.

Our analysis started in December 2023 and focused on the question: Which social media platforms are used by Swiss media professionals? Is it still the controversial news service X, despite owner Elon Musk's controversial changes? Or are Swiss journalists switching to alternatives such as LinkedIn, Bluesky or Instagram Threads? To find out, we examined the activities of 38 selected media professionals from German-speaking Switzerland, French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino. These included 25 media professionals from German-speaking Switzerland, 8 from French-speaking Switzerland and 5 from Ticino.

Before you continue reading here, we recommend that you read our interim summary of the research period from December 2023 to February 2024.

German-speaking Switzerland: In June, activity on X reached a new high with a total of 937 posts. In contrast, there were declines on Bluesky and Threads: 47 fewer posts on Bluesky and 19 fewer posts on Threads. LinkedIn is used in a comparable way. There are 81 posts published by 25 media professionals. Only six of the 25 journalists still post on Bluesky and three on Threads, while the 937 X posts are distributed among 21 people. 14 people are active on LinkedIn.

Ticino: Here, activity is concentrated entirely on X with a total of 432 posts, also a high in the analysis period. All five journalists analyzed are active. 

French-speaking Switzerland: The posting behavior of the eight media professionals analyzed remains unchanged compared to February. Only X and LinkedIn are used, with the exception of a single post on Threads.

Three stand outs

If we take a look at the individual journalists, three people stand out.

• Tech journalist Thomas Benkö from Blick is very active on social media and has been actively involved in the discourse on possible X alternatives since the Musk takeover. Since his blog post in February stating that there was no alternative to X, he has not used Bluesky or Threads any further.
• WOZ journalist Anna Jikhareva is active on Bluesky again in June, after not posting anything in January and February. She remains constantly active on X with 10 to 20 posts per month.
• Agathe Seppey, journalist at Le Temps, posted one article on Threads in June. 

What does that tell us? It seems that Swiss journalists are occasionally experimenting on the platforms in order to stay on the ball and not miss out on a trend reversal. However, they all remain loyal to platform X and are even expanding their activities.

A peak over the border

X remains very much in the headlines. Most recently, X had to account to the European Commission for the number and language skills of its content moderators. The accusation was that there were too few, particularly with regard to current political events. AI also makes life difficult for X. For example, AI-generated images of pop star Taylor Swift are circulating, which X has found difficult to stop. 

X has over 500 million users, making it the largest platform. Bluesky currently has 6 million users, almost half of whom are from the USA. There is still talk that Bluesky could become the leading alternative to X, or even overtake it one day, as the platform is growing slowly but steadily. 

Threads is showing signs of success after a year, but it is also facing its own set of challenges. The lightning quick start with 100 million users within five days was impressive, but long-term retention remains a problem. With around 40 million active users in 2024 and an average dwell time of 10 minutes per day, there is still room for improvement