Twitter is on the brink of launching its new ad revenue share program, an integral part of Elon Musk's Twitter 2.0 vision. This new feature will offer creators the opportunity to earn revenue from ads displayed in their tweet replies.
Twitter CTO Elon Musk revealed plans for this program earlier this month, stating that Twitter Blue subscribers could sign up for a share of the revenue generated from ads appearing in their tweet responses. This move adds another monetization avenue within the platform, potentially encouraging more user engagement. However, it also raises concerns about incentivizing incendiary or divisive tweets to spark more responses and thus, increase opportunities for ad displays in reply chains.
Research indicates that high arousal emotions, such as anger or joy, significantly drive online comments. Negative emotions, in particular, tend to fuel virality, suggesting that the key to increasing comments and replies is to post content that provokes strong responses.
Twitter's program will be available to Twitter Blue subscribers only, with ads served in verified users' replies contributing to the new revenue pool to be shared with creators. Given that only about 0.3% of Twitter users are subscribed to Twitter Blue, this restricts the program's potential reach. Nevertheless, in conjunction with subscriptions, it does offer a new potential avenue for monetizing tweets.
Twitter aims to attract more creators with enhanced revenue share and posting options to maximize its opportunities and encourage more content generation. Elon Musk has expressed a desire to rival YouTube with Twitter's video posting options. Additionally, Twitter has now added long-form posts (up to 25k characters) and new text formatting options, providing creators with more avenues to amplify their in-app presence.
Whether Twitter can match the revenue opportunities offered by platforms like YouTube and Meta remains to be seen, as does users' response to long-form content. However, Musk is keen on increasing Twitter's functionality, transforming it into an 'everything app' that offers greater value to users.
Despite the potential risks of negative engagement, this new program represents another step in the Twitter 2.0 journey, as Musk endeavors to enhance the value of the app.
