How Elon Musk Plans To Make Money From Tweets
Elon Musk has plans for Twitter to make money, following his recent acquisition of the popular social media platform. According to a report from Reuters, Musk outlined his revenue generation plans for Twitter to a group of banking institutions, and one of those plans include charging money for tweets based on their importance and influence.
Musk's plans specifically cover "tweets that contain important information or go viral." Another idea that he discussed was charging a fee for embedding or quoting tweets on a third-party website, particularly those from verified institutions or organizations. The aforementioned idea has often popped up in replies from Musk's followers under his tweets. As per a report from The Washington Post, Musk also floated the idea of paying influencers to generate content.
It is unclear if Musk was referring to the model adopted by the likes of TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, which run influencer funds to support the ecosystem of content creators and drive engagement. The idea has reaped handsome returns, but it won't work the same way on Twitter as it does on multimedia-heavy social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube. However, Twitter already has a similar features called Super Followers that allows an influential person to charge a monthly fee for exclusive tweets. Moreover, there's also a tipping jar to send a one-time monetary gift to eligible Twitter users.
Charging for influence, paying the influencers
Musk reportedly brought up the idea of "subscription services" as well. Again, Twitter already has a subscription-based product called Twitter Blue that offers some exclusive features such as the ability to undo tweets, a dedicated reader mode, ad-free articles, exclusive icons and themes, and a bookmarking tool, among others. Of course, there's potential for Twitter to offer a business tier of its services, especially to media organizations that now rely heavily upon Twitter for sourcing information and engagement.
A Bloomberg report adds that Musk also highlighted the need for influential personalities to be more active on Twitter, likely because it will drive engagement and inject some energy into user growth initiatives. Of course, Twitter's pockets are not as deep as TikTok or Meta, but Twitter's status as the town square will definitely yield positive results, if given a surge in activity from influential figures and institutions.