The blue bird is paying off for some on Twitter as owner Elon Musk starts paying for content in the face of shrinking advertising.
Twitter has just paid out $US5 million to creators whose content is popular and driving advertising revenue.
The social media platform has been under pressure, with major advertisers worried about brand safety, since billionaire entrepreneur Musk bought the company for $US44 billion in October last year.
Twitter needs its top creators to attract ad dollars, especially in the face of Meta’s Threads which gained 100 million users in its first week.
“We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” says Musk.
This new program to keep top performers is just the first round, according to Musk. “Note, the creator must be verified and only ads served to verified users count,” he says.
Musk, who himself has a big following with 148 million followers, has ruled himself out of the scheme.
“I gave my share to the creator payout pool.”
Sharing advertising revenue with content creators is becoming more common. YouTube pays 55% for videos and 45% for shorts.
On Twitter, one report has a creative getting more than $US100,000.
Ed Krassenstein, with a subscription network, says he’s getting $24,877.
How the payments are calculated is a mystery. We do know the calculation is “not exactly per impression” and is based on how many ads were shown.
However, there’s a high bank counter to jump if you’re thinking of applying for payment.
You must be subscribed to Twitter Blue or Verified Organisations and have at least 5 million impressions on your posts in each of the last 3 months.
“Surprise! Today we launched our Creator Ads Revenue Sharing program," Twitter said.
“We’re expanding our creator monetisation offering to include ads revenue sharing for creators.
“This means that creators can get a share in ad revenue, starting in the replies to their posts. This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter.
“We're rolling out the program more broadly later this month and all eligible creators will be able to apply. Go get yourself something nice!”
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