Some Twitter users are now earning money via ads in the replies to their tweets.
New Twitter owner Elon Musk announced the revenue-sharing program in February, and on Thursday some of those involved have been sharing details of their first payments.
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Writer Brian Krassenstein, who has around 750,000 followers, said Twitter paid him just over $24,000, TechCrunch reported. Another creator, SK, has around 230,000 followers and claims to have picked up $2,236 from the microblogging platform, while political commentator Benny Johnson, who has 1.7 million followers, was apparently paid nearly $10,000. The initial round of payments will be sent out in the next 72 hours, Twitter said.
It seems the amount received has been racking up since February, according to a tweet by Musk on Thursday.
Twitter’s owner will be hoping the new revenue-sharing feature will encourage more people to join the subscription-based Twitter Blue tier — a requirement for the program — especially those high-profile users with lots of followers who refused to sign up after Musk removed their blue checkmark in an overhaul of the verification system earlier this year.
After taking so much away from the Twitter community since acquiring the business in October — think third-party apps, authenticity marks, a free TweetDeck — it’s good to see the platform finally giving something back, though it’s true that only those with a large number of followers and plenty of engagement will benefit.
To be eligible for payments for Twitter’s revenue-sharing feature, you need to be subscribed to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations, have at least five million impressions on your posts in each of the last three months, and pass human review for its creator monetization standards. You also need a Stripe account for payouts. Twitter said it will soon launch an application process for the revenue-sharing program.
The first payments come as Twitter tries to head off strong competition from Threads, a new rival app launched last week by Facebook-owner Meta. Propelled by its integration with Instagram, Threads has already picked up at least 100 million users — nearly a third of the size of Twitter’s community — though it’s too early to say if they’ll stick around.