X is Changing How Link Previews are Presented In-Stream, Which Could Impact Your Posting Strategy

I can understand Elon Musk’s push most often, in attempting to drive certain actions on X, like reducing the reach of tweets from non-X Blue subscribers with a view to boost Blue take-up, or limiting the reach of posts with external links to higher incentivize direct posting to the app.

I get it, it’s pretty overt logic. But I do think that he often overlooks the potential negatives of such changes within the broader scheme, and the way they could change the best way that individuals, including influential users, engage within the app.

The newest example on this front is that X will soon start displaying link previews in a very different way, with the headline and preview text removed, and just the header image remaining.

As you possibly can see in this instance, shared by 9to5 Mac, the brand new Twitter link preview will maintain the unique link display within the tweet, with the header image, and a URL overlaid on the image.

Here’s how the old (right) and recent formats look side-by-side:

Essentially, the lower text panel is being removed, while there’ll not be an automatic header or preview text snippet. You’ll get a picture preview, and that’s it, which is able to put more onus on users to create X-specific posts, versus counting on the article link to convey relevant info.

X owner Elon Musk has confirmed the change, which he has claimed full responsibility for.

The view is that this can higher compress the timeline, and improve overall presentation, with Elon specifically looking to scale back the quantity of space that link tweets occupy in-stream.

X can be reportedly informing chosen partners that the brand new design will assist in combating clickbait. I mean, people will still find a way to write down the identical text manually, so it’s not entirely clear how this can assist in negating bait clicks, but this, apparently, is one more reason.

It’s also, reportedly, been pretty unpopular amongst brands in early feedback, but X is seemingly moving ahead anyway, which could have a big impact in your X posting process.

Principally, in the event you’re putting any reliance on preview cards, you’ll need to alter your approach, with a view to ensure the very best presentation to your shared links. It could also impact your older posts, with the identical format prone to be applied to all energetic content. So all of your link posts will probably revert to a single image, which could erase numerous context out of your original tweet/post.

But there’s not much you possibly can do about it, aside from planning for the way you maximize such moving forward, with the change set to return into effect any time soon.

And consistent with Elon’s other changes designed to reshape user behavior, the brand new format may be a method for X to push more journalists towards posting on X itself, which could also explain this recent tweet.

With long-form tweets now available within the app, together with subscriptions, and its ad revenue share scheme, X is attempting to get more original content shared direct to the app, and it’s been keen to highlight the massive payouts that some users have been getting within the early days of the brand new ad revenue scheme.

Perhaps, if X can persuade more users that native posting is a greater option, that’ll help to make X a more relevant, and vital news platform, and draw more users to the app for original evaluation and insight. Though it’s hard to see many journalists being overly keen to take up Elon’s offers on this front, as he continues to criticize any publication that dares to criticize him, Tesla, X, or indeed anything that he decides is a private affront.

Just today, Musk added Mashable to the list of publications that he has an issue with, while Elon has also directly criticized The Recent York Times, Reuters, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC, all just in the previous few months. X is now also restricting the reach of posts to not less than a few of these outlets, as per recent tests, underlining Musk’s contempt for certain media outlets.

Yet, that angst may be where he’s underestimating the impact of this latest change.

By reducing the dimensions and format of link previews, thus making it less desirable to post external links within the app (note: all external links also cop a reach penalty, as Musk recently confirmed), the perfect final result for X can be that more people will start posting direct to the app, but as noted, many journalists should not exactly excited to begin feeding into the X machine, given Musk’s regular criticism of their occupation.

The more likely final result, then, is that this will likely be one other push for journalists to scale back their reliance on the app. Which Musk himself may not have an issue with, but the issue for X, on this case, is that the platform’s value as a news source has come about purely due to its popularity with journalists, who use the platform to not only track the newest stories, but additionally to share their reporting and insights, in real-time.

That’s what’s made X a critical app, despite its relative presence. When it comes to overall usage, X’s 250 million users pales compared to Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, with even Snapchat seeing much more energetic engagement. Besides, X has remained a key platform for a lot of, largely since it’s where the news breakers are engaging, with many stories starting on X, before being aggregated out to each other source.

As such, X’s influence is way greater than what its raw user numbers suggest. But with only a small relative user base, and only a fraction of those people actually posting within the app (90% of X users read but don’t ever post or engage within the app), any reduction in activity amongst that most important cluster of energetic posters could have a serious impact on the app.

Which is why updates like this pose a serious risk. Again, ideally, this prompts more people to share more original content within the app, but that’s also reliant on the concept that people really want X, and that they need to proceed to maximise engagement within the app.

What in the event that they don’t? What if, consequently of changes like this, they only start focusing elsewhere as a substitute, and X loses out, as journalists reduce their reliance on the app, and construct recent communities elsewhere?

That is the counter to Elon’s forceful changes, that they might actually backfire, and hurt X greater than help.

Add to this the proven fact that Threads is reportedly launching a desktop app this week, and that Threads link posts are already higher presented than X, and you possibly can bet that this update can have a heap of publications and journalists checking in on Google Analytics to see just how much referral traffic they’re getting from X, and whether it’s even price implementing an entire recent posting process.  

It probably is, not less than for now. But unpopular changes like this should not prone to drive the outcomes that Musk wants.

Nonetheless, he continues to assert that X is seeing record levels of “cumulative user seconds”, so possibly he’s a genius in any case.