What Is Twitter Used For?: A Deep Dive Into the Twitterverse  

When you go through your timeline on Twitter, now X, you’ll come across all sorts of posts. They cover a variety of topics, right from what’s trending to personal opinions and pretty much everything else. This makes you wonder — what is Twitter used for?

To understand what active users do, you must zoom out and look at the platform. This article does this for you and provides an overview of how people use this social network.

What Is Twitter Used For?: An Outline of What Users Do on X

What is the purpose of Twitter, or more importantly, what do people use the platform for in the first place? Essentially, it is a social network where you share what’s on your mind via posts, formerly tweets. The platform allows you to include various media files in your content. As a free user, you must ensure your posts don’t exceed 280 characters.

People who find your content interesting will follow you. Similarly, you’ll look for posts you deem engaging and follow users who create these tweets. In other words, people use this platform to find and connect with other users.

However, this is rather a simplistic way of looking at this platform. The use case of this platform depends on whether you are a professional. Also, you need to consider what you want to do on X as part of your social media marketing strategy.

For instance, if you run a brand account, you may use X in the following ways:

• Your posts will showcase your expertise and provide valuable information to your target audience.
• You provide quick updates about your products, services, and events to keep your followers in the loop. 
• You can use it to learn more about your competitors.

If it is a personal Twitter account, your options are limitless:

• You can use your profile to follow celebrities, athletes, politicians, musicians, artists, and more. 
• Sharing jokes, hot takes, videos, photos, polls, updates to an upcoming event, and links to articles are other use cases.

What Is Twitter API Used For?: X’s Connection With Applications and Websites

The Application Protocol Interface (API) allows apps to communicate with one another. So, what is the Twitter API used for? It enables various apps and websites to access X’s data and interact with the platform. It is a bridge where two applications can talk and understand each other.

As APIs are everywhere, it’s possible you saw them in action but didn’t realize what was happening. For instance, open Uber and type a location. You’ll see a dropdown menu showing multiple places that match your entry. How does Uber display these locations? It uses Google Maps API, which provides relevant information.

In other words, APIs are the intermediaries in the digital space.

APIs enable software to get information like posts, direct messages (DMs), trends, lists, spaces, and users and perform various actions.

Let’s take TweetDelete, a third-party tool for removing your posts from Twitter, as an example. 

How does it help you find various tweets from your profile? It uses the API to send a request to X’s servers to provide this information. In response, Twitter sends data about your posts to TweetDelete.

The X Ads API enables applications to interact with the social media giant’s ad service. It allows you to create promotions, choose who to target, manage your Twitter campaigns, and see your marketing performance analytics.

The platform provides Twitter or X for websites to display posts and threads on web pages.

You can use these intermediaries to build third-party apps, automate your actions, and collect data. There is a free tier, which offers fairly limited functionality. However, you must jump to the Basic tier to test your prototype. The Pro plan is for startups and small businesses wanting to scale their platform operations.

What Is Twitter Worth?: 2 Reasons Behind the Drop in X’s Valuation

Elon Musk, the current owner of X, bought the platform on October 27, 2022, for $44 billion. What is Twitter worth now, after the change in ownership? According to Bloomberg, X’s value on October 31, 2023, was $19 billion. This is less than half of the amount Elon Musk paid to purchase the platform from the previous ownership.

According to Axios, it estimates the platform’s shares lost 71.5% of their value. It gets this figure from Fidelity, a mutual fund that was part of the deal to buy X. However, you should remember that X is a private company. Due to this reason, Fidelity may not have the necessary knowledge about the social media giant’s financial performance.

However, one thing is clear — the platform is taking a significant hit in its advertising revenue. In 2021, the platform generated $5.1 billion in revenue from advertising.

In 2023, the U.S. advertising revenue fell by 60% due to major advertisers pulling out from the platform. Big names like Apple, Disney, Discovery, and Warner Bros. are some brands that stopped advertising on Twitter.

There were two primary reasons for several companies to pause their advertising campaigns on X:

1. Elon Musk published several controversial posts.
2. Ads from corporations started appearing next to objectionable content.

The new ownership wants to change focus from ads. Instead, it wants 50% of its annual revenue from X Premium subscribers. As of April 2023, according to Statista, the platform has approximately 640,000 subscribers. 

If each user pays $8 a month, this social network generates $5,120,000 from its subscription service. Unfortunately, this is far below the current ownership’s targets.

What Is Happening to Twitter?: The Social Media Giant Is No Longer the Same

If you return to Twitter after a long time, you’ll notice the platform looks different. What is happening to Twitter? For starters, the social media platform no longer goes by Twitter. This is due to the new ownership rebranding the network. They changed the name from Twitter to X.

It is also why you can’t find Larry the Bird, the platform’s iconic logo and mascot. In its place, you’ll see X. Elon Musk explained the reason behind the change was to indicate everyone has imperfections, which makes people unique.

What Is Elon Musk Doing With Twitter?: 8 Changes Introduced by the New Owners

As you may know, Twitter, now X, no longer belongs to the co-founders of this social media platform. Instead, it is in the hands of the billionaire investor Elon Musk. What is Elon Musk doing with Twitter? The list below highlights several transformations and changes introduced under his leadership:

1. X restored the suspended accounts of several high-profile public figures. These include Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jordan Peterson, Babylon Bee, Alex Jones, and Kanye West.
2. The platform’s new ownership introduced Twitter Blue before rebranding it to X Premium. This is a subscription service offering exclusive features to its members. For instance, the character limit for subscribers is 25,000 characters.
3. X replaced Twitter’s iconic verification process with its new subscription service. Individuals get the blue checkmark if they meet specific requirements. Also, the platform introduced gold ticks for businesses and gray checkmarks for government officials.
4. There is a rate limit, i.e., a threshold to how many posts users can read daily. X implemented these caps to combat bots and reduce data scraping. These activities put immense stress on Twitter’s infrastructure, significantly impacting user experience.
5. Elon wants X to become an all-in-one platform like WeChat. As part of his efforts to offer financial services, X Payments LLC started acquiring licenses from various regulations. As of February 2024, the platform has licenses in 18 states in the U.S.
6. The platform introduced Creator Ads Revenue Sharing. Users receive payment for organic impressions the ads receive when they appear in the comments section.
7. The social media giant expanded its subscription plans. Now, you can choose from three packages — X Basic, X Premium, and X Premium+. 
8. X Premium+ subscribers get access to Grok, the platform’s conversational AI.

The platform continues to provide additional features to members of its subscription service.

Is Twitter Worth It? The Right Time To Join Is Now

As it’s been over a decade since X’s launch, is Twitter worth it? Even if you’re late to join X, it is still worth your effort, resources, and time, as highlighted below:

1. Getting started on X as a new user is easy, regardless of when you join: All you need to know is to write, making creating content easy.
2. If you’re a brand, X allows you to address customer concerns and problems quickly: People use this platform to complain about a company’s products and services. You can quickly respond to and resolve these issues when you’re on X. You will change the complainant’s opinions and win over other people interested in your brand, products, or services.
3. Going viral on X will significantly impact your engagement metrics: For starters, you’ll see an influx in your follower count. You’ll notice a considerable increase in traffic if you have a website.

Is Twitter Premium Worth It? 8 Perks You Get as a Subscriber

Before becoming a subscriber, you’ll want to know the answer to this question — is Twitter Premium worth it? The answer isn’t straightforward, as it depends on whether you find these Twitter features useful:

1. X Premium reduces ads in your feed by 50%, and X Premium+ ensures zero promotional messages appear in your timeline.
2. You can apply for the platform’s Ads Revenue Sharing program as a subscriber, provided you meet their requirements. Also, you can start offering Creator Subscriptions to monetize your exclusive content.
3. You get protection against impersonation, as the platform verifies your identity. The social network gives you a blue checkmark if you meet its requirements.
4. The platform provides access to Media Studio and X Pro, formerly TweetDeck.
5. X boosts your replies in the comments section. The amount of prioritization you get depends on your subscription package.
6. It increases the character limit to 25,000 characters, and you can edit your posts. The edit feature is available if you want to make changes within 1 hour after publishing your posts.
7. You can upload high-quality videos and start communities on the platform.
8. X allows you to control who can reply to your posts.

Use Twitter Without Facing Any Backlash With TweetDelete 

Now you know the answer to this question — why do people use Twitter? Be free and express yourself without any constraints on X. You only need to ensure your content doesn’t break the platform’s rules and policies.

You can face significant backlash if you accidentally post questionable content like Elon Musk. Not only does it affect your reputation, but it also becomes harder to build back your credibility. Luckily, you can ensure this doesn’t happen to you with TweetDelete.

Its bulk-delete tweets function can remove as many posts as necessary from your profile. All you need is its custom filter to find the right tweets. Or run the auto-delete utility by providing specific keywords and hashtags. This tool will look for tweets matching your requirements and delete them.

Also, this guide on what is Twitter used for shows you what to expect if you make a mistake.

Join TweetDelete today to ensure your mistakes on X don’t affect your reputation!