Executive Chairman of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX (NYSE: SPX) billionaire Elon Musk has announced a feature that will benefit content creators on the social media platform. In a tweet posted on Wednesday, Mr. Musk said that Twitter will, from now on, provide subscribers’ email addresses to content creators so that they can easily interact with their subscribers outside the Twitter app. The move will also allow content creators to take their subscribers with them if they leave the platform.
The change will be available to content creators who use Twitter’s monetization tools, which include Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces. Twitter has previously introduced other features to help creators earn money, including picture-in-picture videos and a subscription feature that lets followers pay to follow a specific account.
The company has been scrambling to find new ways to attract advertisers in the wake of a disappointing Q1 earnings report and slumping ad sales. Twitter recently hired former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as CEO to turn around the company’s fortunes. Ms. Yaccarino has been tasked with finding ways to modernize the platform and boost ad sales.
However, despite Ms. Yaccarino’s attempts to find new revenue streams, Mr. Musk has some radical ideas for the micro-blogging site. On the surface, his latest idea for Twitter sounds good. He believes that since Twitter users are the ‘creators’ of the site, like places such as YouTube and Twitch, they should be allowed to share in the revenue that they are helping to generate.
On his Twitter feed, Mr. Musk tweeted that starting today; Twitter will start sharing revenue from replies to the platform’s most popular accounts with creators who are subscribed to Twitter Blue. The service costs $8 per month if purchased directly from Twitter or $11 monthly through Apple’s App Store and Google Play. The plan is part of a more significant effort to boost the number of people subscribing to Blue. In his tweet, Mr. Musk said the new feature would only be available to ‘creators who share amazing content with the world.’
Users have widely appreciated the tweet, with some even congratulating Mr. Musk and his team on the initiative. Others have asked what other changes the billionaire plans to bring to the platform, especially as it looks to become a full-fledged direct competitor to other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
