Why I’ve Decided to Get a Blue Tick on Twitter/X
I finally opened my wallet to Elon.
I’ve only gone and done it, friends.
I finally signed up to X Premium (or Twitter Blue, or whatever it’s called now). There’ll be a little blue tick next to my name soon.
I’ve gone back and forth on this for a while but it became like an itch I needed to scratch.
I had to know for myself.
Why now?
Curiosity, mostly.
I’ve stubbornly refused to give Elon Musk any of my hard-earned cash since he bought Twitter last year, but my eagerness to learn and experiment finally got the better of me.
X Premium hasn’t worked for many of my connections on the platform, but who knows what they were trying to achieve? Any how much did they try to get out of it?
The only way to know for sure was to have a go on my own terms.
How will it help?
Many of the “benefits” of X Premium are pretty meh.
Bold/italic text? I could do that for free.
Long-form posts? I didn’t read them, so why would anyone else?
But a few aspects of paid membership peaked my curiosity:
1. “Prioritized rankings in conversations and search: Posts that you interact with will receive a small boost in their ranking. Additionally, your replies will receive a boost that ranks them closer to the top.”
- This might not seem like a big deal, but it’s hard to stand out on the internet, so every little helps. And if you post a lot (like I do), it stands to reason you should give your content as much of a chance as possible.
2. “Highlight posts: Feature your best posts by Highlighting those posts and they’ll appear on your profile in a dedicated tab.”
- While this feature doesn’t yet have the visual appeal of Instagram Story Highlights, I think it could be a useful way to keep important posts in front of my audience.
3. “Edit post: This highly requested feature gives you a 1 hour window to make a limited number of changes to published posts. Use it to make updates, tag someone, or reorder the media you attached.”
- Everyone’s wanted the Edit feature for a while, right? I occasionally make spelling/grammatical mistakes in my posts and hate having to re-do them, so I like this one.
I also don’t mind the idea of grabbing a little sliver of ad revenue further down the line, though I know it’ll be a while before I reach that stage.
How will I judge it?
I’m going to try X Premium for a while (maybe until the end of the year) and see if it has any tangible benefits.
I’ll use analytics to track any upticks in engagement, followers, profile visits or link clicks.
If I see consistent upwards trends, I’ll probably stick with my subscription. If I don’t, or if it’s not significant enough, I won’t.
Either way, as someone who loves testing new things, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the journey, however brief.
I’ll keep you all posted!