At the stroke of a tweet from his personal account, with just a couple of brush strokes, without delving into details and with a few questions bouncing on the table. True to his style Elon Musk has announced a relevant novelty for a Twitter embarked on the complicated task of balancing its accounts. The tycoon has just advanced that, from now on, the platform will share with the creators the income generated by the advertising inserted in their threads. All this with important nuancesOf course.
“Starting today, Twitter will share ad revenue with creators for ads that appear in their response threads,” Musk typed a few hours ago, a message that accompanies shortly after a key clarification: to qualify for that advantage, to be “eligible”, he explained, the account must be subscribed to Twitter Blue Verified, a service that offers certain advantages, but prior checkout.
The service was officially presented some time ago, in 2021, but Musk’s landing at the helm of the company last fall marked a turning point in its development. The objective: monetize a network which in November was losing, according to Musk’s statements, four million dollars a day.
The key: the when
After complications with the verification system that came to generate controversial noises due to the fake accounts and forced Twitter to put the service on standby, the paid subscription model has arrived in Spain. A landing that has allowed clarifies its benefits and especially costs.
Among the former, for example, greater promotion of tweets from Blue accounts stands out, which will enjoy “priority”, less exposure to ads and the ability to publish longer videos. Regarding costs, the website offers an annual plan of 7 euros per month —84 annual plus VAT— or another monthly fee of 8 euros. The price is somewhat higher if it is done from a mobile with Android. iOS is not available yet, but in other regions it is also more expensive.
The new option will help Twitter to share with other platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram or TikTok, although the announcement is made at a complex time for the company, with the advertising chapter far from its best moments.
Starting today, Twitter will share ad revenue with creators for ads that appear in their reply threads
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2023
To be eligible, the account must be a subscriber to Twitter Blue Verified
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2023
After the arrival of Musk, relevant advertisers, such as General Motors (GM), Mondelez or Audio, announced that they would pause their investments in the network while waiting to verify the drift of their new stage, with Musk at the helm. Not long ago, The Information went further and revealed that the company’s daily revenue had fallen by 40% compared to a year ago, data to which is added that 500 major advertisers they would have stopped investing in their ads.
Questions remain as if there will be any other requirement to access advertising revenue, beyond being a Twitter Blue user, the percentage that the platform will take, the system that it will use to reward creators or if the measure will be restricted to certain geographic areas. In the creators profile of the network still do not clarify any of those details. Beyond its operations, the great unknown is whether the initiative will serve to go beyond the functions that it has been implementing over the years, such as Super Follows o tuition fees.
Cover image: Souvik Banerjee (Unsplash)
