Twitter Can Charge Money For Subscription, Exclusive Content, Undo Send & Other Features

Twitter has come up with a way to slide out of the world of social media advertising. After frequent observations of digital advertisement not suiting the format of Twitter, the social media platform is exploring different ways to generate revenue and ensure its growth.

What Is Twitter Planning?

The major source of revenue for social media platforms including Twitter is targeted advertising which promotes a specific group of people. However, this strategy did not give Twitter the same results as its counterparts Facebook and Snap. The situation is clearly reflected by its negligible 0.8% share in the global digital ad market.

Hence, Twitter is not wrong in finding alternative ways to satisfy the demand of its investors. If not advertising, the second often left with social media platforms to generate revenue is through subscriptions. This is the option Twitter has decided to explore. 

What Kind Of Subscription Plans Will Twitter Offer?

Though subscription is thought to be the alternative for advertising, it’s not usually preferred. Social media platforms keep a distance from this alternative since it has the potential to hamper the global reach a platform can get. Hence, the team of Twitter is meticulously formulating different subscription plans.

Ad-free feed, Tweetdeck, higher quality video, verification, analytics, and consumer features are some of the possible features and services that Twitter might offer in its subscription plans. Twitter may even allow its users to charge their followers for exclusive content or a separate timeline of their tweets.

What Does The Industry Think About Twitter’s Plan Of Action?

The Chief financial officer at Twitter, Ned Segal, has pitched this idea in front of its investors saying that the subscription option offers durability in sales. He also added that the subscription strategy will ensure a consistent revenue stream, unlike advertising.

Some of the analysts even have their own idea of a subscription plan that might benefit Twitter. Ron Josey, an analyst at JMP Securities, said “A subscription offering that either offers more content or removes ads would be well-received among Twitter’s more loyal users,”

However, some analysts think that the decision might put the business of Twitter at risk. Michael Levine, a senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group, said “Building a subscription product that’s only interesting to a small subset of users would be an utter waste of time and a distraction,”

 Even the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg feels that charging money from users will restrict the growth of the company and limit its reach to a global audience. Moreover, Facebook’s discouragement towards subscription by keeping all of its platform free for users has threatened Twitter to do otherwise.

This is not the first time Twitter has thought of charging for its services. It was extremely close in manifesting its plans in 2017 when a separate team was brainstorming on the ways to charge for Tweetdeck which offers a view of multiple feeds. However, the plan never got implemented. 

But this time Bruce Falck, Twitter’s head of revenue products said that the company is excited about the opportunity. He also added that they are not expecting any meaningful revenue attribution from it in 2021 as the company is at an early stage of exploration.