Coming off a bit of a lackluster interview last week at the Code 2023 Conference, in which she seemed largely out of her element, X CEO Linda Yaccarino has rebounded with an even-newer appearance here at Khanference in Dallas, where Yaccarino spoke far more preparedly, unveiling a range of key statistics concerning X user behavior, as well as how the platform's seeing growth in 2023.

And after being grilled on usage numbers last week, and not having the answers on hand, Yaccarino came armed with some key stats this time around, which are worth noting for those planning their social media strategy, and the potential for X outreach.
Here are some of the key takeaways shared by Yaccarino at the event:
Users spend 14% more time on X

Says Yaccarino, who adds that people are spending more time in the app, a reflection of the "cumulative user seconds per day" stat that owner Elon Musk keeps repeating.

In July, Musk indicated that X was on its way to hitting a record high in user seconds, iOS and Android reported. Some have since suggested however, that this isn't an especially good measure and that X itself can't actually measure it, based on the data it's able to access.

This's also a difficult number to discern with certain meaning. Because X is reporting total time spent, not average per user, it could mean that a proportion of users are spending way more time in the app, but most are spending less.

Without further insight, it's hard to take this as a good definitive measure of positive growth. But it's something, that may go into your planning.

Video consumption up 20%

Not very shocking.
 
Elon mentioned that video content is being given more precedence as X learns how to keep users in the app. Of course, video views increase for the reason of video content.

As they are in every app. If you didn't know that creating video content was likely to drive more reach and engagement, you're probably not paying attention, but creating great, resonant video content isn't simply a matter of picking up your phone and filming whatever is available.

Gen-Z is the largest and fastest-growing segment

Yaccarino says that nearly 200 million Gen Z users log into the X app monthly, which, when you factor in that X has claimed to have some 550 million monthly active users gives you an idea of the dominance of that segment (40%).

Of course, Gen Z is a wide bracket, covering people aged between 11 and 26. Still, that may point to the opportunities in using X to reach younger markets, especially with most thinking these would best be done either on TikTok or IG.

X facilitates over 500 million posts a day.

This is a bit contentious, as Elon Musk recently pointed out that X is only viewing between 100 to 200 million posts per day in the app-that would represent a big drop on the engagement that Twitter was seeing prior to Musk taking over at the app.

As far back as 2013, Twitter was bragging that it was averaging 500 million posts per day. So it's either seen no posting growth over the last decade or suffered a huge decline in original updates.

In some ways, that latter would be true because people in general are posting less to social apps, though 80% of X users never post at all, using the app in "read only" mode, according to the X team.

But no, Yaccarino has sought to correct the record here, while X also confirmed to TechCrunch that 500 million posts per day is the correct answer.

And why the disparity between what Elon told the world and what Yaccarino now admits?

X reports the 500 million posts per day as follows:

100 million original posts per day
100 million replies to posts every day
300 million quote posts and reposts
As such, when Elon was talking about "200 million posts", he was just referring to original updates and replies, but in reality, full posting activity expands to reposts and quotes, which constitute the in-majority in-app activity.

Which gives you some interesting context around X's overall activity. Essentially, X is reliant on just 100 million original updates per day to fuel its whole ecosystem, and with the platform claiming some 253 million daily active users, that means that, on average, X's daily users are posting just 0.4 wholly original posts per day.

Although in practice, according to X's "read only" user stat, what it really means is the 50 million X users who actually ever post anything at all are sharing two updates on average every 24 hours.

That's not much activity, but perhaps, that doesn't matter so long as people pay attention.

X is signing up 1.5 million new members every day.

To Yaccarino's note, new sign-ups are up 4% year-over-year, representing rising enthusiasm and interest in the X platform.

That's not yet reflected in X's user numbers.

Back in March, X reported that it now has 253 million daily active users, an increase of 15 million on the 238 million mDAU that Twitter reported in July 2022. If X is adding 1.5 million more users per day it should be seeing that level of increase every 10 days or so, so I’m not exactly sure how this matches up.

On the other hand, as Yaccarino mentioned in her recent interview, X is observing increasing activity and interest, but also deleting accounts for spam and bot traffic. Perhaps then it's replacing lost bot profiles with new users; that could explain why the total number isn't reflected step by step.

X is seeing a strong growth of creators

It is gaining increasing interest from creators with many more users looking to build their profile and tap into X's monetization offering as it continues to develop its ad revenue share program.

Yaccarino says that the number of creators signing up to the program has increased 10 times since it first announced the program back in June, and X has paid out almost $20 million dollars to creators via the scheme thus far.

It is one of the better initiatives by the X team, though there are apprehensions that it may not be a sustainable process in the long run, as X continues to revise its payout system to ensure it remains both sustainable and equitable.

As you might feel, there is some skepticism around X's assertions given that most of these remain claims with no proof, considering X is no longer providing any performance updates or full data to support its statistics. But here are the data points that Yaccarino has shared, and perhaps, they may even give you a different perspective on the X re-brand, as well as the possibility that the app holds for the future.