A shoutout to all content creators

I Paid Twitter $8 That The New York Times Will Not

Let the fun begin

Whenever the landlady comes to our apartment, my dogs bark. They do it all the time with everyone who they think asks money from ‘mommy’ — that’s me.

Lucky for Elon Musk, I live too far away that my dogs will not be barking at him once my Twitter Blue subscription renews.

Yes, I signed up for Twitter Blue.

Twitter Blue

Twitter Blue has become the most controversial decision yet made by Musk since he paid $44 billion for the social media platform, and also when he fired Twitter's former CEO Parag Agrawal on day one of owning Twitter.

He is asking for payment to get your Twitter account verified. Many were horrified when Musk wants $8 a month for a blue tick, and you will be surprised how many celebrities became too stingy to pay for a measly $8.

The original plan was for it to go for $20. Not only did it have many critics, but when it first rolled out trolls came out in full force to get verified and pretended to be someone else. Worse, some created pseudo-Twitter accounts for big brands and tweeted stuff that not only hurt the brand but cost the brand millions, like when someone pretended to be Elli Lilly and tweeted that insulin is free. The company lost 4.3% of its value.

Hey, do you want Twitter to go bankrupt?

As Elon Musk tweeted Stephen King,

We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8

Thank you, Stephen King, you made it happen. Now it is more affordable at $8 but billionaire Lebron James will still not pay for Twitter Blue.

I guess that’s why these celebrities are billionaires and I’m not.

I pay for my Medium membership — $5 a month. I can read as many stories as my eyes would allow me to read, because what is Medium without reading Hogan Torah more than three times a month?

You don’t have to pay Medium to read, it has a freemium model. You can read three stories a month for free. The company uses the money it gets from subscriptions to pay its writers — including myself.

So, here is where I would add my referral link, I get a few dollars that add up to my Medium Partner Program earnings every month.

I have to admit that sometimes I default on payments. There were months when the money I received from writing is just enough to cover personal expenses.

But the fee pays for itself if you write meaningful and helpful stories for your readers. You will be paid well enough that you can consider leaving your job and becoming a freelance writer.

I have been since 2020.

Now that I have signed up for Twitter Blue, it had to pay for itself. Otherwise, I can’t keep it beyond my first month.

But now that Elon Musk has announced a new feature, maybe I can continue to pay for Twitter Blue, all I need to do is figure out a way to make money on Twitter.

As a suggestion why not make Twitter Blue the same way, Medium does it here — that the blue tick is nothing but a membership badge? It doesn’t even require writers who are part of the Medium Partner Program to become a member first.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The premium features should be enough for anyone to subscribe to Twitter Blue.

And today’s announcement of the new Twitter Blue features will make you want to scream in excitement or hilarity. From its humble beginning of 140 characters, then to 280 characters, with Twitter Blue, you can tweet as long as 10,000 characters, two and a half times more than the 4,000 characters limit a few days ago.

Although it will truncate the tweet to its first 280 characters.

Do you know how many words are there in 10,000 characters?

Answer: 10,000 characters is between 1428 words and 2500 words with spaces included in the character count. If spaces are not included in the character count, then 10,000 characters is between 1666 words and 3334 words. — Source

That’s already a blog post of at least six minutes of reading time.

And why would any writer or content creator be interested in creating content that long for Twitter?

This may come as a surprise, but Twitter is joining the online creator economy by allowing content creators to offer subscriptions to its followers think of it as OnlyFans or Substack.

And it starts today, you only need to have at least 500 followers to join.

Do what you love and earn money doing it

Offer your favorite followers a little something extra and earn money each month. They’ll get access to a more personal experience with bonus content, and you can get paid for what you create. It’s a win-win. — Twitter

Monetization

Any content creator is looking for ways to make more money out of their content. It is why we should all continue to repurpose our content.

And with the new monetization feature on Twitter, it becomes another platform where anyone can make money from their content — a tweet, a blog post, or a video.

It is always a good thing when we get paid instead of all these companies taking all the profit — the days of social media 1.0 is long gone.

But can one make money on Twitter? It is too soon to tell when its monetization program is in its infancy.

What is already true on Twitter is that some creators have used the platform for brand recognition and take their Twitter followers to content that is gated, like many OnlyFans creators and social media influencers.

Twitter isn’t only a polarizing social media platform, it is great for amplifying your brand’s message, and let us not forget as content creators — You are your brand.

And tools such as Twitter help us.

I see the potential of videos on Twitter, if only it developed Vine further, it could have exploded into what we all know now as TikTok.

But if you think about it, conversations happen in real-time over at Twitter. The only social media platform that does it so well.

Videos can have more traction on Twitter if Musk plays its unique proposition well enough to make it a viable alternative to TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.

If Disney was able to be a viable competitor to Netflix, why can’t Twitter be as big as TikTok?

Maybe, before Elon Musk tries to make Twitter a super app or an everything app it could first make Twitter an all-in-one content viewing app.

New Twitter Blue features

One of the biggest drawbacks of Twitter 1.0 was its inability to edit. A feature that Jack Dorsey never wanted to implement, but it only took months for Musk to add it as a premium feature.

It’s a case of you want it then pay for it.

I tried it and it works. As a Twitter Blue subscriber not only can you edit your tweet it gives you up to thirty minutes to do that, enough time to correct spelling errors or add your favorite emoji.

Today, it added some formatting features — allowing you to make bold and italic, features that you get for free on Medium.

As for what 10,000 characters of a Tweet looks like, here’s my tweet of a blog post I wrote here.

With 9,871 characters, I will let you be the judge of its aesthetics and readability.

My tweet is long enough for a 9-minute read. Will people pay for it to read it?

Who knows.

I have to wait to get my monetization approval to find out.

Final words

If only Musk branded Twitter Blue differently, and called it what it should be — a membership badge, every previously verified account will not make a big deal out of it.

Mainstream media wouldn’t be so averse to paying fees. Although it is much more pricey for news organizations like The New York Times which needed to pay at least $1,000 a month to keep their verified badges or their gold checkmarks.

Even when all subscription comes with premium features, these companies who are critical of Musk will always find a way to have a tit-for-tat against the world’s richest man, and Musk would always try to push their buttons all for the fun of it.

But legacy news organizations don’t need Twitter to survive, nor are they actively pursuing platforms to repurpose their content and make money off them.

It is we, small content creators, who can benefit from Twitter Blue. And if we can only be not so ‘ticked off’ by Elon Musk, we can see Twitter as an avenue to further your journey as a money-making content creator, and that includes us — writers.

Didn’t I say before, what good is our stories if nobody is reading them? Think of Twitter now as a tool for your content syndication.

Thank you for reading, and let’s start the conversation about Twitter Blue by sharing your comments below.

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