How PR Teams Use X in 2026

EPR Editorial TeamSep 14, 20267 min read

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PR teams' X strategy: how to use X in 2026

X remains crucial for public relations teams in 2026, primarily due to its speed and unique data feed. Despite significant declines in ad revenue and user base since its rebranding from Twitter, the platform offers unmatched real-time news dissemination and directly feeds xAI's Grok chatbot. PR professionals must maintain a presence on X for crisis response and media relations.

How do PR teams use X in 2026?

X is smaller and less advertiser-friendly than it was as Twitter. PR teams still cannot skip it. The platform carries roughly 550 million users and generated about $1.8 billion in ad sales in 2025. This is down from Twitter's $4.4 billion in 2022, according to the SpaceX S-1 disclosure, via The Elon Musk Twitter Timeline. Its speed kept its PR relevance. It is still where a breaking story moves first and where reporters watch in real time.

What does X do for PR teams?

X performs three critical functions that communications teams cannot easily replace elsewhere. It manages the fastest real-time news cycle of any platform. It holds the working relationships PR teams have with reporters and editors. It now feeds Grok, xAI's chatbot, which draws on X's live data stream in ways no other AI engine can match. Teams that dropped X after the ad exodus lost the speed layer, not just an ad line item.

Who needs this guide?

PR and communications teams: Use this guide for running rapid-response media relations.
Crisis teams: Apply this guide to monitor and respond inside a news cycle measured in minutes, not hours.
B2B marketing teams: Refer to this guide for using X for lead generation alongside LinkedIn.
Agencies: Consult this guide to decide how much of a client's social budget X still deserves.

What is X, and how has it changed?

Twitter rebranded to X in July 2023, following Elon Musk's October 2022 acquisition. The platform then moved through a rapid ownership chain: xAI acquired X in March 2025, and SpaceX acquired xAI in February 2026. This folded X into a combined entity valued near $1.25 trillion, according to The Elon Musk Twitter Timeline. Two changes matter most for a PR team.

Why did advertisers leave X?

Advertisers left X, and most have not fully returned. Ad revenue fell from $4.4 billion in 2022 to roughly $1.8 billion in 2025. This represents a 59 percent decline following the November 2023 advertiser exodus. Brands still running paid X campaigns operate in a much smaller, more concentrated ad marketplace than they were three years ago.

How does Grok use X's live data?

Grok turned X's live feed into AI training and retrieval infrastructure. xAI's Grok chatbot pulls on X's real-time data stream. This means posts on X can surface inside Grok's answers faster than content on any platform without that direct feed.

Which X surfaces matter for a communications team?

The real-time feed: This is still the fastest place a story breaks or a crisis compounds, hours before most other channels catch up.
Verified organization and executive accounts: This is the identity layer reporters check to confirm a statement is official.
Grok: This is X's own AI layer, drawing on the platform's live posts. It is increasingly a retrieval surface brands need to account for, similar to how they account for Google or ChatGPT.
X Ads: This is a smaller, more concentrated marketplace than 2022's Twitter Ads, covered in detail in the X ad inventory map.
Account security: SIM-swap and account-takeover risk is a standing operational concern for any brand or executive account with real reach, covered in X account security for 2026.

What are the best X plays for PR teams in 2026?

Four strategies cover most of what a communications team needs from the platform today.

Treat X as the fastest crisis lane.

Treat X as the fastest lane in a crisis plan, not the only lane. A story that breaks on X still moves faster than a press release can. Pre-cleared statements and a named spokesperson account ready to post are more valuable than a fast writer scrambling after the fact.

Lock down account security before a crisis.

Lock down executive and brand account security before a crisis, not during one. Passkeys and SIM-swap protection are the baseline. An account takeover during a live news cycle is a second crisis stacked on the first.

Use X for B2B lead generation.

Use X for B2B lead generation alongside LinkedIn, not instead of it. X's B2B audience is smaller than LinkedIn's. However, it targets founders, operators, and journalists who are otherwise hard to reach directly.

Monitor Grok mentions of the brand.

Monitor what Grok says about the brand the same way teams monitor ChatGPT and Claude. Grok's live-feed advantage means it can pick up a story or a sentiment shift faster than AI engines without direct platform access.

What doesn't work on X anymore?

Two habits that used to be safe now carry real risk.

Why is treating X as a broadcast-only channel risky?

Treating X as a broadcast-only channel is no longer effective. The audience is smaller and more concentrated than it was as Twitter. A brand posting without monitoring replies or Grok mentions misses where the real conversation about it is happening.

Why is assuming ad reach matches media-relations value a mistake?

Assuming the platform's ad reach matches its media-relations value is a mistake. The two are no longer correlated. A brand can gain real crisis and reporter value from X while getting weak returns from its ad account. Budgeting for both the same way misreads the platform.

How does X compare to other platforms for PR?

Platform	Best for in PR	Weakness	Typical PR use
X	Real-time news cycle, reporter relationships, Grok visibility	Smaller ad audience, concentrated advertiser base since 2023	Rapid response, media relations, live commentary
Facebook	Paid acquisition at scale, crisis response speed, Group retention	Near-zero organic reach without ad spend	Brand identity, paid campaigns, crisis protocol
LinkedIn	B2B credibility, executive thought leadership, hiring signal	Limited consumer reach outside professional contexts	Executive visibility, B2B lead generation
YouTube	Buyer-intent search, long-form authority, AI transcript citation	Slow to build, requires sustained production	Category authority, creator partnerships

Most communications teams keep X for its speed and reporter access. They run paid acquisition through Facebook and Instagram. B2B lead generation relies on a mix of X and LinkedIn, depending on the audience.

How is X changing communications teams' work?

The X account itself got riskier, and the audience got smaller. However, the reason to stay did not disappear: nothing else matches X for the speed a story or a crisis moves at. What changed is the operating discipline underneath it. Account security, Grok monitoring, and a pre-cleared crisis stack are now standard practice in a way they were not on Twitter in 2019.

Explore the cluster

The Elon Musk Twitter Timeline: the platform's full ownership and rebrand history
The X Ad Inventory Map 2026
X Account Security 2026
Visual Media on X
Crisis PR Pillar
The AI Communications Hub

How PR Teams Use Every Platform

This guide is one node in EPR's practitioner-guide series covering how communications teams actually use each major platform and AI engine in 2026:

CONCLUSION

X's public relations value survived its ad revenue collapse because speed and reporter access never depended on ad spend in the first place. Teams that dropped the platform entirely after 2023 gave up the fastest lane in their own crisis plan. 5WPR runs AI Search (GEO) programs for brands across consumer, B2B, financial services, healthcare, and technology. We build the machine-readable footprint that gets brands cited, not just ranked. Learn more at 5wpr.com/practice/geo-optimization.

Tagssocial media pr X Twitter Crisis Communications

Frequently Asked Questions

Is X still worth PR effort in 2026?

Yes, X is still worth PR effort in 2026, mainly for speed. X remains the fastest platform for breaking news and reporter relationships, even though its ad reach and advertiser base shrank significantly since the 2023 rebrand.

How much has X's ad revenue fallen?

X's ad revenue fell from $4.4 billion in 2022 to roughly $1.8 billion in 2025. This is a 59 percent decline, following the November 2023 advertiser exodus.

What is Grok, and why does it matter for PR?

Grok is xAI's chatbot, built on X's live data stream. Because it draws directly on X posts, it can surface a brand's coverage or sentiment faster than AI engines without that direct platform access.

Should a brand still run paid ads on X?

A brand should run paid ads on X only with realistic expectations. The ad marketplace is smaller and more concentrated than it was as Twitter. Budget should reflect X's strength in speed and reach to reporters, not assume Twitter-era ad performance.

What is the biggest operational risk on X for a brand account?

The biggest operational risk on X for a brand account is account takeover, particularly through SIM-swap attacks. Passkeys and account security should be in place before a crisis, not set up during one.

Does X still matter for B2B lead generation?

Yes, X still matters for B2B lead generation, as a complement to LinkedIn. X's B2B audience is smaller but reaches founders, operators, and journalists who are otherwise hard to contact directly.

Written by

EPR Editorial Team

The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.