Blog/Twitter announces paid ‘Super Follows’ allowing users to charge for access

26th February 2021

Yesterday Twitter announced it’s introducing a couple of new features to its platform that have been met with a mixed response from users.

The first is a feature called ‘Twitter Communities’ that, like Facebook Groups, will allow users to create and join groups based on a single topic, giving people the opportunity to see more targeted Tweets about things that interest them, and not just the anything and everything approach Twitter has adopted thus far.

The second – Super Follows – is slightly more inflammatory among users, and it will allow in-demand Twitter users and content creators the ability to charge for additional content.

This additional content could be a newsletter, access to a Community (see above), a sticker with which you can show your support for a public figure or cause, access to deals or discounts or exclusive content that only subscribers will be able to see.

The move comes as Twitter seeks to find ways – other than advertising – of generating revenue (it says both for its users and itself, but it really means just itself, and on the back of its more popular users).

While the model is already popular on other social platforms, naturally there was some initial resistance among Twitter users (ironically prompting #RIPTwitter to trend…on Twitter) as the announcement effectively means that some people are going to have to pay for something that was previously free.

There was no indication of when these features will be introduced, only that they were on the horizon and that Twitter would have “more to share” in the next few months – perhaps in an effort to gauge reaction among its users and update accordingly prior to launch.

Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey did make one frank admission on the subject of why people don’t believe in Twitter:

“It comes down to three critiques: we’re slow, we’re not innovative, and we’re not trusted.”

Crikey. Plenty of scope for improvement there then. Not sure how allowing users to charge for content is going to address any of these, but there you go.

Seems like they consider revenue to be more important.

Maddison Creative is a Newcastle based design studio specialising in Website design, web development, digital advertising and graphics.