Twitter is making a bold move by paying creators a share of the ad revenue generated from ads served in the replies to their posts. This new initiative is aimed at incentivizing creators and driving engagement on the platform. Eligibility to join the Twitter ads revenue sharing program is limited to users who subscribe to Twitter Blue and have earned more than 5 million tweet impressions each month for the past three months.
According to Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, the first round of creator payouts will total $5 million and will be cumulative from February onwards. These payments will be facilitated through Stripe, providing a seamless and secure transaction process.
Notable Payouts
The payouts received by creators have been significant, as shared by some notable individuals on Twitter. Brian Krassenstein, a writer with around 750,000 followers, revealed that Twitter paid him a staggering $24,305. Similarly, SK, a creator with approximately 230,000 followers, claimed to have earned $2,236, while political commentator Benny Johnson, boasting 1.7 million followers, reported earning $9,546.
Twitter just paid me almost $25,000. pic.twitter.com/oIJ2Ycymzb
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) July 13, 2023
How the Payouts are Determined
Twitter’s payout structure is based on tweet impressions, which determine the amount creators receive. For instance, Babylon Bee writer Ashley St. Clair, with 710,000 followers, disclosed earning $7,153. According to her estimations, she garnered around 840 million impressions from February to July. This equates to a rate of approximately $0.0085 CPM (cost per mille), or $8.52 per million impressions. It remains unclear whether individual CPMs vary among users.
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Twitter has chosen to monetize ads served in tweet replies rather than in the main feed to simplify the process of determining which creators should be compensated. This decision presents an opportunity for creators to encourage users to engage in conversations through replies. However, as observed on platforms like Facebook, content evoking extreme emotions tends to generate the highest levels of engagement.
As Farzad Mesbahi tweeted, “The more haters you have in your replies, the more money you’ll make on Twitter.” Elon Musk humorously replied, “Poetic justice.”
Limitations and Guidelines
While this revenue sharing program opens up new avenues for creators, there are certain limitations. Twitter’s content monetization standards prohibit the monetization of sexual content, impacting the platform’s community of sex workers. Additionally, creators cannot monetize content related to pyramid schemes, violence, criminal behaviors, gambling, drugs, alcohol, or copyrighted material that they do not own.
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Despite the positive steps towards supporting creators, Twitter has faced challenges in other areas. The company is currently being sued for $500 million over unpaid severance checks to laid-off employees during Musk’s takeover. Furthermore, Twitter has struggled to pay rent for its office spaces.
Combating Spam Messages
In addition to the Twitter ads revenue sharing program, the bird app is implementing measures to combat spam messages in users’ direct message (DM) inboxes. Starting July 14, a new message setting will be introduced to reduce the number of spam messages. Messages from people users follow will appear in the primary inbox, while messages from verified users they don’t follow will be directed to the message request inbox. Users who previously allowed message requests from everyone will be automatically migrated to this new setting, although they can switch back at any time.
With these recent developments, Twitter aims to foster a more engaging and secure environment for both creators and users on its platform.
