The new feature allows the account holder to charge followers for their extra tweets, or through content in an exclusive community group, or via the newsletter subscription
Twitter plans to launch super follows feature sometime this year. (Credit: Edar from Pixabay)
Twitter plans to launch a new service called ‘super follows’ using which its account holders can charge their followers for serving exclusive additional content.
The new feature will be launched sometime this year.
The microblogging platform said that the exclusive content could be served through extra tweets, or in an exclusive community group, or through newsletter subscription.
The plans were unveiled by the social media firm during a virtual event held for its investors.
Through super follows, Twitter will look to explore solutions such as tipping and account subscriptions.
Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour, to a question during the virtual event, replied: “We’re thinking of this as a new sort of subscriber layer to Twitter, where accounts can gain super followers and really provide exclusive content to those followers based on their own needs.”
Twitter said that the work on the super follows is part of a larger theme of reconsidering the incentives of its service.
The social media firm plans to enable content creators to earn from their audience through audience-funding models. This approach will encourage the content creators to continue providing content that their audience would like, said Twitter.
The company said that it is continuing to make major investments in its developer API to enable third-party developers to enhance the creativity and functionality of its microblogging platform.
Earlier this month, Twitter reported a net income of $222.1m for the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to $118.7m in Q4 2019.
The social media firm’s Q4 2020 revenue grew by 28% year-over-year to $1.29bn.
Twitter’s monetisable daily active usage (mDAU) in Q4 2020 moved up by 27% year-over-year to $192m. The company is aiming to reach a mDAU of at least $315m in Q4 2023.
Last month, the company acquired Revue, an editorial newsletter tool for writers and publishers, for an undisclosed price. Revue’s tool lets anyone to start and publish editorial newsletters easily and without any costs.