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Twitter has announced that it will start sharing revenue with creators
on its platform. This means that creators can get a share in ad
revenue, starting with the replies to their posts.

"This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on
Twitter. We're rolling out the program more broadly later this month,
and all eligible creators will be able to apply," Twitter says in a
blog post.

The platform has set three criteria to be eligible for the
monetization program. Creators have to be subscribed to Twitter Blue
or Verified Organizations, have at least 5 million impressions on
their posts in each of the last three months, and pass human review
for Creator Monetization Standards.

One of the creators, writer Brian Krassenstein, who has over 750K
followers on the social media platform, tweeted that he had received
nearly $25,000 from Twitter.


The social media company said the payments will be delivered via
Stripe, a financial and SAAS company. Creator Ads revenue sharing will
be available in all countries where Stripe supports payouts.

"We will soon launch an application process for ads revenue sharing.
Creators will be able to apply for both Creator Subscriptions and
Creator Ads Revenue Sharing by accessing Monetization in their
settings," Twitter informs.

Twitter begins sharing revenue with creators

The 2022 Twitter Trends India report, based on analysis of billions of Tweets from Jan 2020 – Dec 2021, found the three biggest movements emerging to the top of conversation: Finance Goes Social, Fan-build Worlds, and Entrepreneurship Hits Peak Culture.

Finance Goes Social

In India, which is still at a nascent stage when it comes to investing or trading online, conversations around finance have shot up by 62 percent, where communities of experts and regular folks are joining forces to share their knowledge on finance. This has led to a 185 percent increase in discussions surrounding financial literacy. The conversations centre around seeking or giving advice, encouraging each other to invest, and in the process learn more about all things related to finance.

Traditional and new-age companies are also interacting with those who want to get involved in understanding finance. Conversations on money have also evolved. Concepts like decentralised finance (hello, crypto!) and digital assets have entered pop culture. And, NFT + Bollywood, Bollycoin, and Beyond Life have emerged as topics to watch out for.

Conversations around investments have also become common on the microblogging platform where people are curious about digital currencies and the potential of Web 3.0. They are looking further to understand the intricacies of crypto and decentralised finance.

The report states that the entertainment industry, too, has interest in this space with the example of film composer AR Rahman, who embraced NFTs. Also, there has been the rise of finfluencers who tweet about their financial journey, educating the general public on markets and investments at the same time.

Fan-build Worlds

Speaking of Fan-build Worlds, the report stated that discussions around fandom increased by 47 percent where fan clubs are taking charge of conversations to create worlds they want to be a part of. 55 percent are taking ownership of passions like #CricketTwitter, and 35 percent are building complex worlds like #DCFanDome.

The emerging topics that have surfaced on the platform are Cosplay, Marvel Fans, LARP and #DCFanDome. In the case of Cosplay and LARPing (Live Action Role Play), the communities use the platform to share their passion and experiences online after meet-ups and conventions.

With the rise of local streaming platforms, more diverse content is being shared and niche sub-cultures are being talked about. Discussions about Kollywood (Tamil film industry) have grown by 15 percent over the past year. This comes in the wake of India tasting diversity away from national cinema and regional voices emerging to support one another and find their tribe.

Entrepreneurship Hits Peak Culture

Presently, India is the third largest unicorn ecosystem in the world. As the report stresses on Entrepreneurship Hits Peak Culture, enthusiasts took to Twitter to discuss all things related to startups. #StartUpTwitter has seen growth, and a 22 percent increase in discussions around entrepreneurship in the year 2021. Also, founders are building communities along with their own personal brands. 

Memes like #PeakBengaluru and #SharkTankIndiaMemes have brought more people into the fold on the platform. The topics that have emerged on the platform are collaborative platforms, app creation, creators becoming founders, startup programmes and monetization tools.

A 40 percent increase has been witnessed among women who are joining the conversation, where the talk around female entrepreneurship went up by 269 percent year-on-year.

62 percent rise in conversations around finance: Twitter trends report

Last week, my digital vastu aligned with my online grahan to create a perfect viral storm. I made two viral tweets in a gap of five days. Between the two tweets, I got about 270k impressions, 4000 likes, and 350 retweets. As a result of which, I added a grand total of 20 followers. Yes, twenty. 

This was heartbreaking and fascinating on so many levels. A year ago, if I did these kinds of numbers, I would add at least about 500-700 new followers. I don’t know what changed. The algorithm. The user behavior. Or both.

As the number of social media platforms grows, retaining users becomes a big issue. And users are harmfully spoiled for choice. Harmful because the platforms are built in such a way to ensure we don’t get bored even for a second. It’s like having a dopamine dealer on speed dial to ensure we never run out of stuff in this digital rave party. As a result of which our attention spans have begun nosediving all the way to the bottom.

Earlier, our Twitter feed was filled only with people whom we followed. We just saw their thoughts and tweets all day. But there was a slight issue: the limited set of creators/friends/influencers we followed couldn't be remarkable daily. So the overall content quality of the feed was just about alright. 

We didn’t feel this was a big issue because, during those good old days in the early 2020s, we had larger attention spans. That ensured we didn't get bored easily. We had the patience to look through our feed, and also a penchant for discovering and following new accounts when we came across interesting retweets.

But all that changed somewhere in the last couple of years. One, the algorithm has learnt a lot more about us through our data footprint and can target content that will keep us hooked far more effectively. And second, increased exposure to reels and short format videos have made us more impatient and less tolerant towards content that immediately doesn’t give us that dopamine hit. Short format video platforms are designed in a way to get their users surprised every few seconds. The videos change every few seconds.

The algorithm serves you different genres of content back to back, again ensuring you don’t get bored. You go from BeerBiceps asking you to not fap and meditate to Warren Buffet’s investment advice to Ronaldo’s best freekicks to Urfi Javed’s latest costume to chicken leg piss in less than two minutes. 



<blockquote>"The casino always takes home more than the players. The gatekeeper is winning, not the creator."</blockquote>



So much new information and surprises are offered to us at breakneck speed. It’s a black hole of mindless entertainment that we cannot get out of. And now suddenly, if we don't get that hook every few seconds, we tend to get bored. Since our time and attention isn’t unlimited, Twitter has found itself competing with these short format apps for screen time; and as a text platform, to hold your own against these video platforms can be quite a task. So well, they had to change in order to keep up with the TikTokers.
 
The Twitter algorithm has now pivoted our feed to what I call, 'The Best Of' format. Essentially, we get served the best tweets around our areas of interest regardless of whether we follow those profiles or not. The platform knows that our dwindling attention span has no patience for discovery and we are building resistance to dopamine inducing content. 

So now, when we see a good tweet, we are not excited by it enough. Because the tweet quality of our feed has gone up since we are being served only the best. Since the best is coming at us, why take the trouble of following? We are now trusting the curation of the platform to a higher degree than our own gut and intuition. This makes it harder for creators to build a following even if they are consistently good.

Creator life will only become tougher because the platforms don’t want you to own your audience. They don’t want your follower count to go up and they don’t want to guarantee you the engagement. Simply because the booming influencer economy business is not filling their pockets, adding to their revenue, or increasing the platform’s profits. 

The platforms want to retain viewers using your content but not give you the audience in return. Once they clip the influencer wings, they will encourage brands to invest that money in ads and performance marketing within the platform, directly benefiting the platform.

I’m not saying the influencer business is shutting down, I’m just doubting if it will be as lucrative because you are competing with the platform for a share of the cash. The creator economy dreamland is not as easy as most of us have envisaged. You have the biggest stage in the world if your content is working, but immediately the stage disappears if the next piece of content is not the best. 

You are continuously auditioning. In the long run, the casino always takes home more than the players. The gatekeeper is winning, not the creator.

Devaiah Bopanna is a founding member of SuperteamDAO. Views are personal.

TWITTER