Social media platforms are known for incentivizing users in several ways to keep them engaged and active.
These incentives often play on psychological triggers, creating a sense of reward, belonging, or status. The most common way is giving users social validation, which include Likes, Comments and Shares. This can give them a sense of popularity and influence, incentivizing them to create more content in the hopes of gaining widespread recognition.
If platforms are willing to step things up, they may start offering users monetization options.
X, the platform previously known as Twitter before Elon Musk acquired it, has offered a way for X Premium users to monetize their content, by paying them based on how many ads were served to the replies section of their content.
This time, this is changing.
In what it calls the "biggest update to Creator Revenue Sharing yet," the platform said that X Premium users are going to be paid based on the engagement others make on their content.
Ads in replies will no longer impact your payout.
Instead, you’ll be paid based on engagement with your content from Premium users.
So, when your followers subscribe to X Premium and engage with your content, they support you directly.— X (@X) October 9, 2024
X Premium users are those who pay for X's paid subscription service.
These people are those who are subscribed to X Premium as subscribed accounts, and that they can be distinguished by their verified blue checkmark badge next to their username.
And here, because X Premium already get priority in tweet replies, and the level of that priority depends on which X Premium tier they subscribe to, and that they're the people who are going to get paid, and that they're only going to get paid if other X Premium users comment on their post, users should expect more blue checkmarked users to post on their posts.
This is because in theory, the more people that subscribe to X Premium and engage with content from other Premium subscribers, the more money they all make.
The company said that "up to" 25% of Premium subscriptions will go "directly to creators."
They should expect to see more X Premium users showing up in replies even more than they already are.
According to an X help document, the change is planned to go into effect November 8.
And, because X Premium is growing, your payout is too.
The more Premium subscriptions overall, the more revenue you earn.— X (@X) October 9, 2024
To anticipate the surge, X said in its Creator Revenue Sharing terms that it shall remove users from the program if they are found to artificially inflate views on their posts.
"Only genuine interactions from Premium users will be counted toward your earnings," according to X’s Premium account.
Revenue from "verified ads impressions" in replies won’t affect revenue sharing starting November 8th, according to a support document.
This shift means that users can not get paid, even for content that lacks advertisements entirely.