X Shares Insights Into Key Trends of 2024

Will you be increasing your investment, in time and/or money, in X in 2025?

The platform has become a more divisive consideration, due to the rising political influence of owner Elon Musk, and the way in which he’s utilized X as his own propaganda tool. But at the same time, many people are aligned with Musk, and his political beliefs, and as the 2024 U.S. election highlighted, the scope of such division within U.S. society remains significant.

As such, X could actually become more influential in 2025, despite losing users, and despite many people swearing off the app entirely.

Millions are still logging onto X every day, and it remains the best platform for following evolving news events in real time.

And if X is a consideration for your brand in 2025, the latest trend overview from the platform may provide some guidance on how to connect with the X audience.

As you can see in this overview, X has provided insight into the most popular trends in the app in 2024, including music, movies, emoji usage, and more.

First off, on usage, X says that video views in the app have increased a massive 40% year-over-year.

Of course, X, like all social platforms, derives the most benefit from video content, because it keeps people in the app for longer, so X is also amplifying video content more than other post types.

As such, if you are looking to boost your X presence in 2025, video should be on your content agenda, in alignment with X’s immersive video feed, which is presented in full height, vertical stream.

The “active user seconds” stat is less convincing, as we’ve covered previously, but it does suggest that many, many people are still spending a lot of time in the app every day.

In terms of pop culture trends, X says that musicians Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Ariana Grande remained popular, while rising stars like Charli XCX also saw many mentions.

In terms of movies, “The Substance”, “Deadpool and Wolverine”, and “Wicked” drove the most interest.

While “Era” was the term that saw the biggest rise in usage throughout the year.

Though I don’t think that it was being used in general conversation, so much as it would have been boosted by Taylor Swift’s world tour. But either way, X has highlighted this as a key trend.

X has also provided an overview of the most used emojis:

The only change of note here is that the “laughing while crying” emoji has dropped back to third, when it was the most used emoji in 2021 and 2022, while the fire emoji has risen up the usage charts.

Make of that what you will.

Finally, X has also shared its listing of the “biggest moments” of the year, based on X posts:

There are some interesting notes here. “Grand Theft Auto 6” (GTA VI) hasn’t been released yet, but even so, it was a key discussion point, underlining the value of X to the gaming community. As noted, Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” was clearly a key discussion point among X users (plenty of Swifties still logging into X apparently), while the solar eclipse, being an evolving news event, was closely followed by X users.

But “Ozempic”? As a topic?

Sure, I guess. I mean, semiglutides have sparked a range of reactions.

But a bigger topic of discussion than the U.S. election?

I don’t know, it seems like an odd inclusion, though probably, like most of X’s shared data points, it just lacks context.

Either way, if you are looking to tap into X discussion in 2025, it could be worth taking note of these discussion trends, and considering what they mean for X, and for your audience.

Should you be looking to boost your X presence in 2025?

Well, it depends.

While some reports suggest that X is losing relevance, and some of the data shared by X is misleading, what I can tell you is that X did lose millions of users in 2024, and that it hasn’t gained any traction, in terms of daily active users, which has been sitting on 250 million since 2022.

That’s based on its own official reporting, but at the same time, I can also tell you that X’s isn’t losing as much audience traction as many reports suggest.

And at 500 million total users, it’s still a key platform for many people. And with Elon becoming a bigger political player, it doesn’t seem like X is going to lose a heap more relevance in the immediate future.