For years, the phrase "I can't believe Twitter is free" has popped up as a meme when funny or eye-roll-inducing messages made the rounds on the social media platform. Now, the bird app is shaking that up with a rollout of a subscription-based tier.
The new service, called Super Follows, will allow content creators to charge their followers for exclusive content, according to Twitter CFO Ned Segal. The Super Follow is part of a larger agenda to boost the platform's profits as it looks to remain competitive in the ever-evolving world of social media.
"When we think about this massive market opportunity we have around digital advertising, there's over $150 billion that's immediately addressable to us through our brand ads, through our direct response roadmap," Segal told Cheddar. "We recently relaunched our website Clicks product and our app installer, our MAP [Mobile Application Promotion] product, and we'll keep moving all the way down the advertising funnel until you can buy something on Twitter."
Though monetization for Twitter is a priority, Segal said right now it is unclear how the company will profit from Super Follows. Still, he emphasized the importance of allowing content creators to get paid for their contributions to the platform along with improving user experience, but he noted that Twitter acquired subscription-based newsletter service Review in January and allows the company to retain 95 percent of its revenue as a possible example of the kind of model being sought for the product.
"So, not everything has to start with, 'how do we generate more revenue,'" he added. "Sometimes it's about, 'how do we create a great experience for people for people on the service' because that ultimately will ladder up to revenue."
Among other features, the platform is expected to roll out: Twitter Communities, which will allow users interested in similar topics to discover each other. The company has set an ambitious goal of acquiring 315 million monetizable daily active users (DAU) by the end of 2023. In the company's most recent earnings report, it announced it reached 192 million DAU, up 27 percent year-over-year.
With former President Donald Trump's permanent expulsion from the platform, there was speculation the ban might stunt the platform's growth, but just last month the company reported a significant growth in daily active users.
"As you may remember from our earnings report a couple weeks ago, we mentioned that in January, we added more monetizable DAU than the average of the last four Januarys. And so that's a really powerful reminder for people, along with the fact that we said we think we'll grow DAU about 20 percent this quarter against tough comps last year, that Twitter's more than any one account, it's more than any one topic, it's more than any one geography," Segal said.
While the social platform was founded in San Francisco, Twitter reports that 80 percent of its users are outside of the United States. Expansion is the goal, and with that, users can expect the social media site to continue introducing new features.
"Remember, we started with 140 characters and text messages and then we added images and more characters and video and live video and audio tweets. One great new product that is in beta today that I played around with last night that I can't wait for people to see, it's called Spaces. These are audio chat rooms. I can't think of a better way to extend what we already do around serving the public conversation than give people the opportunity to participate in or listen to people talking about a topic that's interesting to them and tweet alongside it and follow it," based on their interests, Segal explained.
