- Brands that will succeed into the future need to part of, or creators of community. If you’re not yet invested in creating a community for your brand, check out the different platforms your fans can live on here.
- Twitter is quickly moving from the giving us the news now, to a creator economy hub.
- There is a growing shift away from ad-based revenue models. Organic brand marketing is the best way to navigate a digital landscape where paid social ads don’t get results.
In case you missed you, last week we published a piece on best practice for Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse. You can read it here.
Twitter is giving me a run for my money right now. And maybe they should give me some money considering how much good PR I’m giving them atm 😉 There is so much for us marketing and media types to keep up with right now – and it’s exciting! It’s been a long time since a social media company has done anything that’s truly excited me.
Someone told me Twitter was a radical company the other day… I giggled. On reflection however, they really are radical. They are doing things differently right now and their future is bright.
It’s like Twitter had its entire product roadmap in drafts for years and finally hit “send all.”
On Thursday 25th February, during an announcement for analysts and investors Twitter announced two upcoming features
1) Super Follows: The ability for users to charge their followers for access to additional content
2) Twitter Communities: The ability to create and join groups based on interest areas
Feature 1: Super Follows
This is the payments feature that allows users to charge for extra content – think bonus tweets, access to a group or subscription to a newsletter!
During Twitter’s company announcement on Thursday, they shared a digital mock up depicting how a user might charge $4.99 per month in return for extra, exclusive content. This is Twitter’s way of empowering the creators of the creator economy. This is a way for creators and publishers to get paid directly by their readers and fans.
Patreon and Substack are two examples (aside from the obvious YouTube and Facebook) to implement payments features for creators in this way.
Feature 2: Twitter Communities
Communities is going to be Twitter’s long awaited competitor to Facebook groups. Something we didn’t even know we wanted on Twitter, but now it’s coming, it makes so much sense.
News of Twitter’s myriad new features comes at a time where society is increasingly sick of the incumbent media companies – Facebook and Google – whose businesses operate on the “commodification of attention” ad-based business model.
While Twitter has used ad-based revenue in its business model to date, these new features are shining a light on a new way of doing things in the world of content creation.
Keeping emerging and underrepresented voices front and centre through creator discovery
Speaking to Katherine Rundell from Twitter’s Creator team in a Space after the announcement on Thursday, she explained that once Twitter launches all its new functionalities, creator discovery is going to be front and centre – so identifying emerging and under-represented creators will become increasingly easier – and remain that way as time goes on.
This is yet another way Twitter is turning the incumbent social media model on it’s head. While Facebook, Instagram and YouTube tend to empower the already empowered – those with massive followings – Twitter is for the everyman.
A better business model
So in a world, where business models are ad focused and creators create for free, Twitter is flipping this on its head by incentivising high quality content with monetisation and putting that money right in the hands of the creators themselves. Sounds pretty good to me.
Maybe google and fb ads just don’t… work https://t.co/uFA79L87Fq
— Wong Joon Ian (@joonian) February 27, 2021
As crypto community expert Joon Ian Wong put it… Maybe Facebook and Google ads just don’t work any more anyway. Now is the time to invest in organic growth through community.
“Exploring audience funding opportunities like Super Follows will allow creators and publishers to be directly supported by their audience and will incentivize them to continue creating content that their audience loves” – Twitter
2021 is Twitter’s year – their revenue goal is more than $7.5bn in the run up to 2023. That’s more than double 2020 revenue ($3.7bn). So let’s wait and see how these guys continue to soar and evolve in the world of the creator economy.
Given how much I’ve been talking about the creator economy and all of Twitter’s newness, you can be sure to catch any updates via the Anthro newsletter on www.anthro.community.