It seems that Twitter’s improved Blue subscription offer is beginning to take on a more refined shape, with two additional elements now live for paying subscribers, including prioritized ranking and subscriber Tweets. As a quick recap, Twitter re-launched its $8 verification plan 2 weeks back, supposedly ironing out some ruffles that came during its initial rollout. The main draw of Twitter’s new Blue offering is still the blue verification tick, making paying subscribers appear just as important as ‘legacy check mark holders’ in the app.
Twitter Bluer
Note that two of Twitter’s planned three new additions to Blue are now available to Blue subscribers, with the said users now able to upload videos up to an hour long in Full HD (FHD, 1080p). Subscribers are also getting ‘Priority Ranking’ in ‘Conversations’. The 1st element is part of Elon Musk’s broader push to get more video content posted to Twitter, as opposed to being linked to another platform.
Musk’s longer-term vision is that Twitter can offer a better revenue share for video creators than other apps. If Twitter can incorporate monetization, along with a display of Tweeted comments in the same video, then that could lead to another pathway to generate more engagement and usage. Of course, that still won’t be easy.
Monetization is, and will always be, a key appeal for creators, and as we’ve seen with TikTok, any opportunity to make money and build an audience will incentivize creators to directly share their content in other apps, as opposed to linking back to their main channel or elsewhere. However, more videos will need more storage, which would add to Twitter’s infrastructure costs. With this in mind, it’s unlikely that Twitter would be able to catch up to the likes of YouTube anytime soon.
Also in the gray area is whether or not users would actually want to see long-form content on the app. Twitter’s unique value proposition had always been its snappy and fast-moving text interactions and while it has tried several other mediums to try and improve its overall rating, there has been very little observed resonance with these more in-depth, engaging elements. That doesn’t mean that Musk and Co. won’t be able to change that perception, but there will be a significant challenge in shifting people’s mindset of what they mainly come to Twitter for – Tweets.
There does seem to be a sliver of hope for high-profile creators though. It’s one of the few good signs and Musk does seem dedicated to making it a focus moving forward. It’ll be interesting to see how Blue subscribers use the option to upload longer clips, and how users will engage with said Tweets.
Onto Priority Ranking, it also remains somewhat uncertain just how this element will impact Twitter usage and what exactly ‘priority’ entails. Does that mean that your Tweets will always appear at the top of Search and Reply threads? What would that mean for users’ Tweet reach and engagement? At least on the former, we’ll now have more insight, with Twitter adding a public Tweet view count on all Tweets this week. One key consideration here could be that people can now see that Tweeter Blue subscribers are getting a lot more exposure with each Tweet, which could serve as a good lure to attract more people paying $8 per month. Then again, as Musk himself notes, if 90% of users don’t Tweet, then this wouldn’t be of much value for them in getting priority listings for Tweets that they never post.
The Wrap
You can see the logic here and it may work to incentivize increased takeup of Blue. Either that or it causes users to Tweet even less because everyone will see how little response they’re getting. In the end, it ultimately depends on what the numbers show. There is some logic to Twitter trying to display into its advanced Twitter Blue subscription offer and its capacity to potentially boost users’ Tweet reach in the app.
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