Earlier this month, Twitter, now known as X, took a step to retain its top talent by initiating ad revenue sharing with verified creators. Today, X's owner, Elon Musk, announced the expansion of the "Ads Revenue Sharing" program, making it accessible to eligible creators worldwide. The program is set to allocate a total of $5 million in the initial round of creator payments, accumulated from February onwards.
Several creators expressed receiving substantial payouts, with some reporting earnings ranging from five to six figures.
To qualify for the program, X users must be subscribed to Blue (previously Twitter Blue) or Verified Organizations and have achieved a minimum of "15M impressions on cumulative posts within the last 3 months," while also maintaining at least 500 followers, as detailed on the creator program's website.
X is utilizing ads displayed in replies to creators' posts, rather than those in the main X timeline, to calculate payouts. This strategy encourages creators to share content that sparks extensive conversations. To maintain a certain level of safety and appropriateness, X has imposed restrictions, prohibiting sexual content, violence, criminal behavior, gambling, drugs, alcohol, and "get-rich schemes." Moreover, creators are not allowed to monetize copyrighted content they do not own.
With the latest announcement, the program is now accessible to creators worldwide, as long as they meet the eligibility requirements.
"We aspire for X to become the ultimate platform on the internet for creators to earn a living, and this marks our initial step in rewarding your contributions," states a post from the official X account.
According to X's CEO, Linda Yaccarino, this represents an "absolute game changer" for their creators.
In addition to its global launch, Elon Musk shared a chart indicating that X's monthly users achieved a new peak in 2023, even after the removal of bots, an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. The chart shows Twitter, now X, reaching 541.5 million monthly users at one point, but lacks clear labels for the specific months. There's also uncertainty about how Musk defines "monthly usage" in comparison to the industry standard of MAU (monthly active users).
It's worth noting that the chart presented by Musk differs from data shared by others using third-party measurement tools. For instance, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince pointed out declining traffic to the Twitter domain. Similarly, Simialarweb reported decreases in Twitter traffic coinciding with the launch of Threads.
