Twitter's Letting Creators Get Paid

ITS FIRST BIG FEATURE RELEASE IN YEARS

For a long time now, Twitter has been massively more influential than it is successful. Tweets allow journalists to get their stories out, celebrities to connect with their audiences, and politicians to... never mind.

It could be argued that Twitter as a platform has had more influence on media, business, and politics than any other single news platform over the past decade. And they're finally trying to figure out ways to monetize that influence.

Remember, it was about five years ago that the New York Times identified that news-based advertising was broken, so they switched to subscriptions, and since then the company's market cap has increased 8X. At the same time, innovation has come along in the form of Patreon (subscriptions), OnlyFans (premium access), Twitch (tipping), and Linkedin (premium membership & messaging).

Twitter is finally starting to figure out that, in 2021, the ad model only works when you have cornered the market and can essentially force people to buy your media (Facebook & Google). So, they're taking what's worked for the innovators and applying it to their model. No specific timeline has been announced, but it looks like we'll soon have the ability to Super Follow accounts, which means that we'll be able to pay them for access to exclusive content, a group, a newsletter, or for a badge that we can display on our own accounts.

They're also rolling out a feature called Communities, which looks like it will operate much like Groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. It's a great move, because Groups have proven to significantly increase engagement and time spent within the apps.

Whether, or how, people will use the features is yet to be seen, but it's exciting to see the old bird trying a few new tricks.

READ MORE

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting