Elon Musk’s decision to make it harder for users to achieve the coveted blue badge on Twitter may have driven more people to sign up for the social network’s premium tier. This is because many users didn’t want to pay $9.99 per month just to get a badge that says “legacy.”
Twitter Blue may not have had the best start off when it comes to attracting users, but this could change based on its recent push into non-advertising based revenue. The platform is currently averaging around 19 million active users each day – giving it a lot of potential for growth in the future.
Twitter is banking on Twitter Blue at a time when advertising — which traditionally has accounted for the vast majority of Twitter’s income — remains in rapid decline. The social media giant is betting that its new attempt to attract paid subscriptions and increase its ad revenue will be more successful than past endeavors, including ads displayed in tweets and promoted accounts.
While advertising on Twitter has seen a slowdown in recent months, DoubleVerify and IAS have seen an uptick in business as advertisers are drawn to the platforms’ improved safety controls.
The $11 million in revenue that Twitter has generated from Blue thus far is relatively insignificant when compared to the company’s overall business. However, this number does show that interest in the new service is high, and it may be attracting users away from other social media platforms.
Analytics firm Sensor Tower has announced that Blue has more than 385,000 mobile subscribers worldwide on both iOS and Android. According to the report, the U.S. is its largest market with 246,000 subscribers spending around $8 million through their mobile devices annually.
Twitter has seen a dip in advertising demand due to broader macro uncertainties and platform issues, which has made other revenue streams more appealing. However, the network still has a large userbase and could see a resurgence in ad sales as the market stabilizes.
TWTR’s massive user base makes it one of the most popular social media platforms available. While it is difficult to estimate how many Twitter users there are currently, the platform has previously claimed that it has nearly 238 million monetizable daily active users. This means that a significant amount of people are using this platform to make money, which could mean good news for those looking for ways to capitalize on its popularity.
Since its acquisition by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Twitter has lost a significant number of advertisers, which may be contributing to declining revenue. According to The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, earnings dated December 2022 had noted a 40% decline in revenue. This could be because Musk’s focus on increasing Twitter’s user base and adoption by celebrities has drawn away advertiser interest. In Q2 2022, the last quarterly earnings statement Twitter released (when it was still a publicly traded company), advertising made up all but $100,000 of Twitter’s nearly $1.2 billion in revenue. Without large marketing budgets from companies who want their ads to reach a large audience on the platform, those revenues may continue to dwindle over time unless something changes.
Sensor Tower believes that the majority of the subscriptions will come in the first few months, with a smaller percentage recurring each month.
Some social media users are hesitant to spend $100+ all at once on a new service, preferring to try out the product first before investing. This is likely due to the fact that users are typically less inclined to spend large sums of money all at once on anything, preferring smaller amounts over time in order to see if they’re happy with the purchase. If a user enjoys using the new service and finds that it provides value, they may be more likely to continue spending money on it over time. Conversely, if they find that they don’t use the product as much as they’d hoped or find other comparable services offers
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With a user base of largely tech-savvy elites, Twitter Blue was seen as a luxury service that offered special perks not available to the general public. However, this wasn’t always the case. In its early days, Twitter Blue aimed to be more accessible and inclusive for all users by offering features like bookmarking and the option to “redo” a Tweet.
For some, Blue might feel less like a necessary update and more like an unwelcome overreach. After all, it’s difficult to overlook the absence of key features that have been a staple of the Twitter user experience for years. But under Musk, Blue’s taken on a different emphasis: it’s part of his strategy to rebuild the company’s revenue model. As such, the features — both those that are live plus those that Twitter promises are coming — feel more central to the mainstream Twitter experience. Whether or not people approve of this change is up to them, but ultimately this is what will dictate whether or not Blue becomes entrenched as part of Twitter’s core product offering moving forward
Blue users are promised more visibility and unique abilities over other Twitter users in the replies of their tweets. They also get fewer ads and a better experience when creating longer threads.
The world’s first creative content delivery network, Artima, has announced that it is selling subscriptions for $11 per month (or the local equivalent) on iOS and Android, and $8 on the web. This represents a significant decrease in price from previously available options. “We are excited to give our users more affordable choices while also providing access to our premium content all in one place,” said CEO Andrey Murzin.
The new data suggests that Twitter Blue, the redesigned version of the Twitter app for mobile devices, received a positive reception from U.S. users in its first month post-relaunch. The platform reportedly gained over 160,000 subscribers in the country in its first month of operation and appears to be performing well based on user engagement data.
Twitter is struggling to take off in its second-largest market, India, where it launched Blue earlier this year. While the company has reportedly raised only $301,000 worth of investments since launch, Sensor Tower says that only 17,000 mobile subscriptions have been purchased. This leaves the door open for other platforms to compete in this important territory.
Indian consumers appear to be quite passionate about Twitter on mobile devices, as the company saw rapid growth in in-app purchases following its local launch of Twitter Blue. Although Twitter is still far behind some of its global rivals when it comes to market size, the country’s growing interest indicates that the social media platform may have something of value to offer Indian users.
The increase in revenue from in-app purchases on Twitter’s mobile apps appears to be related mostly to the subscription product, with boosted tweets and other in-app purchases providing very little contribution. This suggests that there may still be potential for growth for both the subscription product and otheroptions available through Twitter’s mobile apps.
Twitter’s monthly active users jumped by seventeen percent in December, to 304 million people. This suggests that the social media platform is gaining popularity among more and more people each month.
