What are Super Followers? Twitter’s new feature, briefly explained

Twitter thinks your tweets – or at least some of them – may be worth something. AT a virtual event for investors on Thursday, the company said it plans to launch a pay-per-post feature, called Super Follows, in which users will be able to pay the people they follow for their best tweets.

With Super Follows, Twitter will allow users to earn money from the content they make exclusive to particular followers. Sample screenshots posted by the company show that the payment system can take many forms. For example, a follower might pay a creator they follow on Twitter a few dollars a month to access that user’s exclusive newsletter or to see special tweets only available to Super Followers. They may also be able to join a particular group or access a badge indicating that they support that creator.

The idea that you would pay someone for their tweets might seem overkill, but a Twitter spokesperson told Recode the goal was to “rethink our service’s incentives.” Basically, the premise seems to be that this pay-to-mail feature will help build more specific communities around specific topics.

Another change coming to Twitter is a group-like tool called Communities. We don’t know much about this yet-to-come feature – Twitter says more information will come later this year – but the idea appears to be a more private and controlled way for communities to come together on Twitter outside. public.

“[I]It can still be difficult to find and connect directly with people who share your interests in targeted conversations, ”a company spokesperson told Recode. “This year, we’re making it easy for you to discover, participate and engage in conversations with communities that share your interests.”

None of the new features announced by Twitter are currently available, but the company says it will reveal more information in the coming months. Still, Thursday’s announcement is a sign that Twitter wants to be more than an incredibly public online chat room and that the company is leaning into the small “micro-communities” that are organically forming on its platform.

After all, someone can jump on Twitter to see the latest global news, but someone is also on the site because they follow a particular set of users and influencers, whether they post on Tesla or Taylor. Swift.

The arrival of Super Follows and Communities comes as Twitter has moved to mimic the closed features available on other platforms. Late last year, Twitter launched “Fleets,” Snapchat-like stories that disappear and are only accessible to subscribers. The company is also expanding its new Spaces tool, small audio rooms that work much like the new Clubhouse app. And, following in the footsteps of services like Substack, Twitter earlier this year purchased the Revue email newsletter service and is working on integrating subscription-based newsletters directly through their public Twitter accounts.

Twitter’s recent moves also indicate that the site hopes to add more layers to its historically public platform. All signs indicate that by the end of 2021, a user with a particularly promising tweet will have a lot more control over who can read it, from being able to charge people for that content to sharing the post in a more private community. passing by even by displaying it in an ephemeral fleet.

The shift to more closed content means Twitter will also face more challenges, such as the proliferation of misinformation and harmful (even dangerous) content that can foment in private online spaces. (After the launch of Fleets, some pointed out that the closed, short-lived nature of the content could make it easier to spread false information.) It’s also not clear how the addition of payment-based components will impact. on the famous free platform.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a perfect post in mind, Thursday’s announcement says it might be worth sticking to it a bit longer. The reward could be more fruitful than simple “likes” and retweets.

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