X Opens Ad Revenue Sharing Globally, Twitter’s Rebranding Strategy

Earlier this month, Twitter, now known as X, initiated its ad revenue-sharing program with verified creators to retain top talent on its platform. Yesterday, X announced that its “Ads Revenue Sharing” program is available for eligible creators worldwide. Elon Musk, the owner of X, revealed that the program aims to distribute $5 million in the first round of creator payments, starting in February.

Numerous creators have already received substantial payouts, ranging from five to six figures.

To qualify for the program, X users must subscribe to Blue (formerly Twitter Blue) or Verified Organizations and have “at least 15M impressions on your cumulative posts within the last 3 months,” as explained on the creator program’s website. Additionally, users must have at least 500 followers.

X determines the payouts by monetizing the ads displayed in the replies to creators’ posts, not in the main X timeline. This encourages creators to post content that fosters extensive conversations. However, X has set some boundaries on permissible content, prohibiting sexual content, violence, criminal behaviors, gambling, drugs, alcohol, and “get-rich schemes.” Creators are also not allowed to attempt monetization of copyrighted content they do not own.

With yesterday’s announcement, the program is now available globally to creators who meet the eligibility criteria.

“We want X to be the best place on the internet to earn a living as a creator, and this is our first step in rewarding you for your efforts,” reads an official post from X.

X CEO, Linda Yaccarino, called it an “absolute game changer for our creators.”

In addition to the global launch, Elon Musk tweeted a chart indicating that X’s monthly users reached a new high in 2023, even after the removal of bots. The chart shows that X (formerly Twitter) reached 541.5 million monthly users at one point, but the months are not labeled. It remains unclear how Musk determines “monthly usage” compared to the industry-standard MAU (monthly active user).

It’s important to note that this chart contradicts data shared by others using third-party measurement tools. For example, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince recently pointed to declining traffic to the Twitter domain, and Similarweb also reported drops in Twitter traffic following the launch of Threads.