Twitter revealed its plan to add a ‘Super Follows’ and a ‘Communities’ feature to its platform in order to double its development velocity – which refers to how the creation of new features could affect their Monetizable Daily Average Users (mDAU) and revenue.
We’ve set ambitious goals and a clear strategy to accelerate innovation and growth. #TWTRAnalystDay pic.twitter.com/U1WnhimXs3
— Twitter Investor Relations (@TwitterIR) February 25, 2021
Kayvon Beykpour – Product Lead at Twitter – and Dantley Davis – Head of Design and Research at Twitter – revealed ‘Super Follows’ – a paid feature that allows creators to monetize their content. This new feature will cost $4.99 per month and will give users access to exclusive content, deals and discounts, community access, and subscriber-only newsletters created by their favorite creators.
This is Twitter’s first time offering a paid feature to users – and could be a potential way to diversify their revenue streams beyond targeted advertising. Twitter’s announcement for a subscription-based model has been long-awaited by users and company investors alike. Over the past few years, many influencers and creators have been seeking out additional ways to monetize their content that goes beyond traditional sponsored posts and affiliate marketing: platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans – who offer membership-based models for creators to easily make money – have risen in popularity, with some creators making up to $200,000 annually.
A Twitter Spokesperson explains why audience-funding could be useful to Twitter creators:
“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”.
The upcoming launch of ‘Super Follows’ could prove to be an extremely successful move by Twitter to double its development velocity – with users and creators alike benefiting from higher quality content and monetization respectively. However, the feature could potentially limit Twitter’s user base: since its launch, Twitter has always been an open platform where users could freely share their opinions and view valuable content created by a wide array of key figures and industry-experts. The addition of a paid-subscription model may result in negative backlash from some users on the platform.
In addition to ‘Super Follows’, Twitter is also looking to add a ‘Communities’ feature: similar to Facebook Groups and Reddit Communities – Twitter users will be able to create and join groups based on common interests.
Twitters describes the new feature:
“We’re working to create a product experience that makes it easier for people to form, discover, and participate in conversations that are more targeted to the relevant communities or geographies they’re interested in”.
Users are becoming increasingly more interested in discussion-based media. For example, Clubhouse – an invite-only Audio app that allows users to join discussion-based rooms based on topics – has created mass buzz across social media – with key figures such as Elon Musk tweeting their support:
Moreover, with community-based events on-hold due to the global pandemic, social media platforms are increasingly looking at ways to digitalize the community experience.