A number of supermarkets appear to be stepping back from posting on X, with explanations ranging from monitoring ‘developments’ on the platform to seeing stronger engagement elsewhere.
So far in 2025, Sainsbury’s and Asda have joined Tesco in not posting except in reply to customers. Tesco had already ceased doing by the start of 2024, while Sainsbury’s posted only a handful of times last year, having previously been more active. Asda posted several times a month throughout most of 2024 up until December.
Ocado has also ceased posting, having last done so in December.
“We are staying close to developments on X,” said an Ocado spokesperson. “For the moment we aren’t actively pushing marketing messages on the platform, but are instead using it as a customer service channel to meet our customers’ needs, for those who choose to interact with us in this way.”
Asda said it was more focused on creating content for channels that sparked higher levels of engagement with customers, such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, as well as LinkedIn for corporate stories. It said it did not have a policy to not use X.
M&S has not posted on its main consumer X account since October. It tweeted regularly throughout 2023 but last year its activity was mainly focused around the Euros in June and July. The retailer said it took an omnichannel approach to social media, including posting corporate announcements on its M&S News account on X.
Other major supermarkets including Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and Iceland continue to actively post on X, while all continue to tweet in reply to customers.
Waitrose, which last posted in January, said it had made no major change to its approach and used X primarily for customer service purposes.
Lidl said it was continually reviewing the channels it used but had made no changes.
Iceland said it was engaged in an ongoing review of how the platform develops.
The frozen food retailer’s executive chairman Richard Walker posted for the first time on the fast-growing platform Bluesky in November, saying: “Hello. This looks nice…. like Twitter, without the MAGA bots.”
Sainsbury’s appears to be the first major supermarket to have created a Bluesky account, though it has not posted.
Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Aldi did not respond to The Grocer’s enquiry.
Elon Musk-owned X has added Nestlé, Colgate, Shell and other brands to a lawsuit claiming an advertising industry coalition illegally boycotted the site, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Launched last year, the lawsuit relates to a fall in ad revenue following Musk’s takeover of X, formerly Twitter. It alleged firms withheld spending by following safety standards set out in a now-disbanded World Federation of Advertisers initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media. Unilever was dropped form the lawsuit in October, with the fmcg giant saying X had committed to “ensure the safety and performance of our brands on the platform”.
Read more: What ‘ludicrous’ X lawsuit means for fmcg advertisers
Musk has become an increasingly divisive figure in recent years, accused of giving voice to rightwing accounts on X. He welcomed back to the platform controversial figures such as ‘Tommy Robinson’ and Katie Hopkins, who were banned under its former owners, and has criticised the UK government, posting that “civil war is inevitable” in response to posts about last year’s UK riots.
He is now a major figure in world politics, having been given a role in the Donald Trump administration leading its new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
Musk sparked a furore in January with a one-armed gesture in a speech marking Trump’s inauguration as US president, which some on X likened to a Nazi salute, while others disagreed.
Musk tweeted in response: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
On Sunday, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said Musk should be “held to account” for polling his audience on the platform over whether the US should “liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government”.
The Grocer has attempted to contact X for comment.
No comments yet