X, Meta, and Snapchat Ramp Up In-App Promos for Their Services

Social media platforms are stepping up their in-app promotional efforts, running bold campaigns for their own products and subscription services during the holiday season.

X, formerly Twitter, has been aggressively promoting its X Premium subscription. The platform has introduced full-screen pop-up ads that are hard to dismiss, with some users finding the interface confusing due to design choices. Despite X’s ambitious goal of growing its subscriber base to 9 million by this stage, only an estimated 1.3 million users have signed up to the service.

Elon Musk’s long-term projections for X Premium rely on significant growth, with a target of 104 million subscribers by 2028. To meet these goals, X has ramped up promotions, including a feature for gifting subscriptions, but its current offerings seem to lack widespread appeal.

Meta is also utilizing its platforms to push Meta Quest VR headsets, a key component of its metaverse vision. Facebook and Instagram users are encountering top-of-feed promotions aimed at driving interest in VR. While the technology is advanced, many users feel the available apps and experiences don’t yet justify the purchase, making adoption slower than Meta might hope. Snapchat, meanwhile, is promoting Snapchat+ through direct messages to users, which some consider intrusive. These tactics highlight a broader trend of social platforms transforming into direct advertising engines for their own products.

While the promotions are relatively easy to ignore if users aren’t interested, it’s no surprise that these big pushes are coming on the cusp of the holiday period. The earnings that these platforms make – or do not make – before we kick off 2025 could be a major factor in how they proceed into the next year. Only time will tell if these services and products earn enough to remain the core focus of each respective platform – but if they succeed, it could only reinforce how valuable these platforms are for marketing as a whole.