If your social calendar is full of reposts, copied trend captions, supplier photos, and generic AI-written updates, you are building on weak ground. The immediate problem is not only that the content feels replaceable. It is that platforms are giving more attention and, in some cases, more rewards to posts that look owned, distinctive, and created first-hand by the account publishing them.
According to The Next Web, X is shutting down its revenue-sharing programme on September 7 and replacing it with an Original Content Rewards Programme that pays for original work rather than reposts of other users’ content. Most Saudi and Gulf businesses are not posting on X to earn creator payouts. But the direction is still important: platforms are making a clearer distinction between accounts that create something and accounts that simply circulate what others have made.
What X’s change signals for business accounts
The specific X update is about monetization. The wider lesson is about content quality and ownership.
For years, many brand accounts have treated social media as a distribution channel: take a product photo, add a caption, repost a customer story, summarize a trending topic, repeat. That approach can still have a place, especially for community engagement and timely announcements. But it is becoming harder to stand out if most of your posts could have been published by any competitor with a similar product list.
Original content does not need to mean expensive production. It means the post has a reason to come from your business and not from a random aggregator account. A Riyadh café commenting on how Saudi customers order iced drinks in summer has more ownership than a generic “coffee is life” post. A clinic explaining how patients should prepare for a common appointment has more value than reposting a general health quote. A real estate office sharing what buyers often misunderstand about a district has more authority than repeating a market headline with no added view.
This matters on X because the platform is fast, opinion-led, and conversation-driven. Reposts and summaries may help you stay visible, but they rarely build a reason for people to follow you. If X is now explicitly rewarding original content through its new programme, brands should treat that as a reminder to build more first-party thinking into their calendars.
What “original” looks like for Saudi and Gulf brands
Original does not mean every post must be a deep essay or polished video. For most businesses, it comes from what you already know: your customers, your sales conversations, your locations, your service process, and your point of view.
For an online store, original content could be a short X thread about how customers choose between two popular product types, based on real questions the support team receives. It could be a product comparison written in your own language, with your own photos, rather than a copied supplier description. It could be a behind-the-scenes post explaining why you stocked a certain item for Ramadan, Eid, back-to-school season, or winter camping.
For a restaurant or café, original content could be a photo from today’s kitchen prep with a simple note from the owner, a short post about how you built a new breakfast combo, or a customer question turned into a helpful answer. It does not need to be cinematic. It needs to feel like it came from your actual place.
For clinics, originality often comes from education. Patients ask the same questions every week: Is this treatment painful? How long does recovery take? What should I avoid before an appointment? Turning those answers into clear posts, in Arabic and English where useful, creates content that is practical and specific to your clinic’s service experience.
For real estate offices, original content can come from the field: what clients ask during viewings, how families compare neighbourhoods, what documents are often missed, or what to check before signing. A post like “Three questions we hear from first-time apartment buyers in Riyadh” is stronger than sharing a broad property quote.
For agencies, original content can come from campaign lessons. You do not need to reveal private client details. You can explain the thinking behind a content format, show a before-and-after structure, or share what made a campaign easier to manage.
How to use AI without making your content generic
The X change also raises an uncomfortable point for marketers: AI can help you create faster, but speed alone can lead to sameness. If every business uses similar prompts to produce similar captions, the output becomes easy to ignore.
The practical answer is not to stop using AI. It is to feed it better inputs and keep the brand’s judgment in the loop.
Start with your raw material. Before asking AI for a post, write down what only your business knows. That might be a customer question, a product detail, a founder’s opinion, a local observation, a campaign goal, or a real objection your sales team hears. AI is much more useful when it is shaping your knowledge rather than inventing a generic message.
Then give it a role that matches the channel. On X, you may want a sharper opening line, a concise thread, or several variations of a point of view. On Instagram, you may want a carousel structure. On LinkedIn, you may want a more professional explanation from a founder or manager. The idea should stay yours, even if AI helps with wording and formatting.
Finally, review for ownership. Ask a simple question before publishing: could a competitor post this without changing anything? If the answer is yes, add more of your own context. Mention the type of customer you serve, the local situation, the decision you made, or the lesson you learned. This is especially important for brands operating in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, where language, seasonality, local habits, and trust all affect how content is received.
A better content mix for X and other channels
You do not need to abandon reposts, summaries, or trend reactions completely. They can still support visibility and conversation. The problem is relying on them as the main content engine.
A stronger mix for business accounts might include four types of posts.
First, publish brand viewpoints. These are short posts that explain what your business believes about a topic. A clinic might say, “The best patient education is the one people understand before they arrive, not after they are confused.” A café might explain why it keeps a smaller menu. A real estate office might share its view on what makes a location practical for families.
Second, turn customer questions into content. Keep a running list of questions from WhatsApp, DMs, calls, and in-store conversations. Each question can become an X post, a short video, a carousel, or a LinkedIn update.
Third, create campaign assets from your own offers and operations. If you are launching a seasonal menu, a new service, or a property collection, do not only post the final announcement. Share the thinking, the selection criteria, the preparation, and the customer problem it solves.
Fourth, use executive and team posts. Founder, manager, doctor, agent, chef, or account director perspectives often feel more original than brand-only announcements. These posts do not need to be personal diaries. They can be practical notes from people who know the work.
This content mix also makes scheduling easier. Instead of waiting for inspiration, your team can build a weekly plan around owned inputs: one customer question, one viewpoint, one behind-the-scenes note, one campaign post, and one timely reaction with your own angle.
Takeaways
- X’s move, reported by The Next Web, is a clear reminder that original content is becoming more valuable than reposting and summarizing.
- Saudi and Gulf brands should focus on posts that only they can credibly publish: customer questions, local observations, service knowledge, and team viewpoints.
- AI is useful when it shapes real business input, not when it replaces brand thinking.
- Reposts and trends can support a calendar, but they should not be the main strategy.
- A practical weekly mix of viewpoints, answers, campaign assets, and team posts can make your social presence more distinctive.
If you want help turning your own business knowledge into scheduled posts, captions, images, and short videos across X, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Threads, you can try PostWave free and see how it fits your workflow.
Researched, written and published automatically by PostWave's AI, in Arabic and English.
