Now that Twitter has found more ways to make more money, the social media platform plans to share the love with content creators by giving them a cut of the revenue generated from their content.
As expected since Musk’s takeover, there’s nothing for free. Creators who want to be part of the action will pay for it.
“To be eligible, the account must be a subscriber to Twitter Blue Verified,” announced Musk in a tweet on Friday.
Starting today, Twitter will share ad revenue with creators for ads that appear in their reply threads
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2023
A Blue subscription cost $8 (R140)/month or $84 (R1,470)/year. Besides getting the blue tick (that used to be free), subscribers get a range of features on the opt-in subscription-based service. These include the ability to undo tweets, change themes, choose what they want to see on your timeline, and shortcuts to Top Articles. Blue subscribers also “see 50% fewer ads on their Following and For You timeline”.
Read More: Twitter Blue will soon have a more expensive ad-free tier for hardcore users
In order to keep the social factory going, the service depends on users actively using the platform. That’s about to ramp up. It seems creators will have to spend more time creating engagement on their content if they want advertisements in their comment sections. Basically, creators must ensure there are enough comments on their posts as this will increase the number of ads posted in the comment section.
As a creator, you may have to spend more time ‘working for Twitter’, but you’ll at least get some money out of the time you spend on it.
There’s another catch. A tweet may only be able to generate enough revenue to outweigh the $8/moth subscription fee IF it goes viral. If not, creators could find themselves paying the subscription fee, spending more time attempting to generate more engagement in their replay section, and then making less than the subscription fee they paid.
So I have to pay $8 a month in order to make $5 from the ads.
— Irene Zhao (@Irenezhao_) February 3, 2023
Twitter Blue continues to face technical issues as the platform continues to evolve into a platform that offers added value to those who can afford the subscription fee.
Read More: More Twitter changes: expect long-form tweets, bookmark changes and verification for organisations (soon)
Under Musk’s tweet on the latest developments regarding a share of the revenue for creators, Twitter users continued to post questions seeking clarity on how some of the features on Twitter Blue actually work and how to rejoin if they’d been kicked out during the multiple changes. Others continued to offer suggestions on alternative ways to manage the subscription-based platform. However, Musk continues to promise blue skies in the near future for Blue.
Twitter’s legacy Blue Verified is unfortunately deeply corrupted, so will sunset in a few months
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2023
In addition to the added features already available on the platform, it plans to add more features to Blue. Subscribers get preferential treatment when they report spam and scams, see fewer ads on their timelines, and post longer videos. If you think these should come standard on Twitter, you’re probably among many who do.
