X has made another change to the engagement requirements for its creator revenue share program, with the platform increasing its minimum threshold for verified followers.
X’s creator revenue share scheme enables users to make money from their content, based on engagement with their posts from verified users. Originally, the program was based on ads shown to verified users within their post replies, but back in October, X changed this to verified user engagement, which should make it easier for participants to make money from their content.
But clearly, that’s also posed some payout challenges, as X has now announced that participants will need at least 2,000 verified followers to qualify for the program, up from 500 originally.
As per X:
“We’re increasing the eligibility criteria so that we can focus on making our top creators successful. The new criteria are: – 5M organic impressions in the last 3 months – 2,000 verified followers Verified follower count is now available in account analytics.”
The latter has been a much-requested feature, making it easier for creators to understand how much of their audience is contributing to their monetization efforts.
Meanwhile, the increased verified follower threshold will mean that more creators can generate more money in the app, by ensuring that they have a bigger monetizable audience, thus expanding their potential for engagement.
So it’s really about ensuring that if people do sign-up for the program, they’re more likely to be paid, as they’ll have more verified users within their initial audience.
The exclusion of non-paying users as a revenue source here also means that X has more money to pay to these creators, as they can take it out of the income from verified subscriptions, lessening the burden on its ad revenue, which has continued to decline this year.
X is also giving creators more capacity to make money from subscriptions to their content:
“Creators can now request price changes to new and existing subscriptions. Price change requests will take roughly a week to process and take effect on a rolling basis as subscriptions renew.”
So now, creators will be able to alter the pricing for their subscription offerings, providing another pathway to expanded monetization in the app.
It’s an interesting concept, and it’s been an interesting experiment for X to undertake, in seeking to find a means to ensure that users get paid to post, adding more incentive for ongoing engagement. But many creators have complained about fluctuating payment amounts, and wildly varying experiences with the scheme.
Which is not surprising, as X is still working out the best way to facilitate these payments in an equitable and financially viable way. And while restricting it to verified users only does make sense from the latter perspective, it does also mean that the vast majority of X users are locked out of the program.
So it’s not really a great monetization offering as yet. Of course, it’s better than nothing, as X users will point out, but it does seem like the true value of this program was tied to the broader plan to get a billion people to pay to use the app, as per Elon’s original monetization reform plan.
Thus far, around 1.3 million people have signed up as X Premium subscribers.
X is running an aggressive promotion to boost take up over Christmas, but evidence, at this stage, would suggest that the vast majority of users are never going to pay to use the app.
Maybe X can sweeten the deal with more incentives, and maybe, if X sees a resurgence in usage, that’ll get more people to buy in.
But right now, this remains a niche offering, for users who post content that specifically appeals to X Premium subscribers.
