X is now virtually irrelevant for Mongabay

X/Twitter has become virtually irrelevant as a source of traffic and engagement for us.

In preparation for an upcoming board meeting, I reviewed social media engagement data for Mongabay News (news.mongabay.com), the English-language news section of Mongabay (excluding Mongabay-India). The numbers made clear just how much X/Twitter has declined over the past year, even off an already low base.

LinkedIn, by contrast, has now become our most important social media channel in terms of both traffic volume and engagement quality.
We had largely moved away from Twitter before we lost our main handle in March 2023. While we continued to receive some referral traffic, it quickly declined after Elon Musk’s August announcement that headlines or text would no longer be displayed within article links.

With the ongoing exodus from the platform, it’s hard to imagine X recovering as a relevant channel for us.

The decline of “Environmental Twitter”—a group of 380,000 users who often discussed climate change and biodiversity conservation—was documented in a study published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution last August. Led by Charlotte Chang, the research revealed that a significant portion of “Environmental Twitter” became inactive after Musk’s acquisition:

“By April 2023, only 52.5% of Environmental Twitter users were still active, compared to 79.4% of Politics users,” wrote Chang and colleagues. “The changes were significantly larger after Musk’s takeover, with a more pronounced decline among Environmental Twitter users than Politics Twitter.”

They noted that “the rapid decline in active users raises alarm bells and signifies a substantial loss for the conservation community,” which includes ecologists, social scientists, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders. For advocates and researchers, the authors said the departure of environmental users from Twitter is a major setback, weakening a primary channel for disseminating information, mobilizing diverse audiences, and tracking public discourse on biodiversity and climate change.

🌈 Despite X/Twitter’s decline, our audience growth 📈 has been robust: Average monthly visitors to Mongabay News in 2024 are up 99% compared to 2023, and up 126% relative to 2022.

Note: this data does not apply to Mongabay’s other bureaus, Mongabay India, Mongabay-Indonesia, Mongabay Latam, Mongabay Brasil, and Mongabay Afrique.

🔬 Chang, Charlotte H. et al. Environmental users abandoned Twitter after Musk takeover. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 38, Issue 10, 893 – 895. https://lnkd.in/gtJd6585