Elon Musk Says that Twitter Will Start Sharing Revenue with Creators for Ads in Replies

The following stage of Twitter’s creator monetization push is coming, though there are some pretty significant considerations to factor into the newest revenue share element outlined by Twitter chief Elon Musk.

As explained by Musk, very soon, Twitter will begin sharing revenue with creators for ads shown of their tweet replies. Which adds one other pathway for people to generate income from their Twitter presence, though the actual detail on this case is very important.

First off, as Musk notes, only Twitter Blue subscribers (or those gifted verification) shall be eligible for this system. That’s just about according to Twitter’s broader verification strategy – though the actual ‘verification’ elements still remain questionable (you would like a phone number and money, that’s it).

But more importantly, only ads served throughout the replies of verified users will count towards this latest revenue pool to be shared with creators.

Hang on, it’s possible you’ll be pondering, didn’t Twitter halve ad exposure for Twitter Blue subscribers?

Yes, but not in a way that can affect this offering.

A key concern with the implementation of Twitter Blue has been Musk’s commitment to halving ad exposure for paying subscribers, which could even have a big effect on Twitter’s bottom line. The typical revenue per Twitter user within the US is (or was) $12 per quarter, and with nearly all of that income being because of this of ad exposure. So theoretically, would mean that, in cutting ad exposure by half, Twitter Blue subscribers would find yourself bringing in $6 per user/per quarter as a substitute from ad exposure alone.

Twitter has watered this down since Musk’s original announcement. Back in April, Twitter announced that Blue subscribers would now see ‘50% fewer ads within the For You and Following timelines’, but the identical amount in all other elements. That’s lessened Twitter’s exposure to revenue loss because of this, while it also obviously aligns with this latest revenue share element.

Essentially, the Twitter Blue ad reduction doesn’t relate to this update, as the quantity of ads shown in replies stays unchanged, but Twitter did must do some re-jigging to separate these elements.

The following part, then, is potential ad exposure, and what type of money Twitter creators can expect to see because of this of this latest initiative. And it’s likely not very much.  

Based on current estimates (reduced ad exposure plus monthly payments), Twitter’s currently bringing in around $30 per Twitter Blue user, per quarter.

Twitter Blue currently has around 700,000 subscribers, which, based on these figures, implies that Twitter Blue can be bringing in around $21m per quarter for Twitter. The vast majority of ad exposure is available in the important feed, not replies, so breaking it down, you may see, possibly, where Elon’s $5m block payment comes from, as a fraction of the general intake from Twitter Blue users.

The issue, then, is dilution. $5m divided by 700,000 equates to around $7.14 per user, so if every Twitter Blue subscriber was posting content that generated an equal amount of ads of their replies, they’d find yourself getting a tiny payment from this element every three months ($2.38 per 30 days for reference).

Now, that’s not the way it’s going to work. Some users will earn lots more, based on the quantity of replies they see, thereby giving Twitter more capability to display ads in-stream, which can give them a much bigger revenue share. But mainly, the payments will not be going to be massive – you’ll be lucky to generate enough to cover the prices of your Twitter Blue monthly subscription through this program alone.

Which, in fact, remains to be higher than the nothing you’re getting back straight away, nevertheless it’s not exactly on par with YouTube or Instagram, when it comes to direct income based in your content within the app.

(For reference, YouTube pays, on average, around $5k per million views on a clip.)

But this is an element of a much bigger monetization push from Twitter, not the one element, so it’s just one other step in its broader revenue share plans.

Though a potentially larger concern with this initiative is the inducement system that it creates, with the brand new program effectively pushing users to post tweets which can be going to generate lots of response.

What sort of content generates probably the most replies? Posts that spark an emotional response are going to drive more engagement, and the emotions which can be almost certainly to trigger comments, specifically, are anger, happiness, and fear.  

As per a study of 65k online posts, published by Harvard Business Review:

“Articles with numerous comments were found to evoke high-arousal emotions, comparable to anger and happiness, paired with low-dominance emotions where people felt less on top of things, comparable to fear. Alternatively, social sharing was very connected to feelings of high dominance, where the reader feels on top of things, comparable to inspiration or admiration. Emotional valence was less-connected to virality, with the viral stories having each negative and positive valences. Nevertheless, the researchers did find that negative emotions contributed to higher virality.”

In other words, if you should incentivize more positive engagement, sharing is probably going a greater focus, but when you should trigger more arguments, posting anger-inducing content is the solution to go.

That explains why the media landscape has develop into so divisive, because online algorithms incentivize such – because more engagement equals more time spent, which is healthier for ad exposure, and thus, their bottom line. Facebook’s News Feed algorithm has arguably caused huge damage on this regard, which is why Meta’s now attempting to re-align user habits away from argumentative content. But Twitter’s latest revenue incentive program, based on replies, could actually be pushing things the opposite way, and see more indignant provocation in tweets because of this.

That doesn’t look like it aligns with Elon’s mission to concentrate on ‘unregretted user minutes’ within the app – but on the other hand, Elon himself is seemingly a fan of argument and challenge within the app, so in his view, possibly this can be a higher approach.

Either way, the method is unlikely to generate a heap of additional income for users, and will incentivize more argumentative takes.

Again, it’s just one other step within the broader creator monetization push on the app, and every element will add up, providing more means for creators to generate income within the app. But I’m unsure that that is an awesome addition at this stage.