Twitter’s seeking to give its visible components extra focus, together with, doubtlessly, a brand new, devoted video tab on person profiles, because it continues to re-shape the person expertise beneath Elon Musk.
Elon has repeatedly famous that video wants extra particular enhancement, together with improved monetization choices for creators, which, in his view, might ultimately see Twitter compete with YouTube, by providing direct connection on-platform, and higher advert income share.
If they will truly make it work.
First off, Twitter’s within the strategy of exploring new methods to present media content on user profiles, which might assist to reinforce the video expertise.
As you possibly can see on this instance, shared by Twitter designer Andrea Conway, Twitter’s seeking to replace the show of the Media tab on person profiles to a extra Instagram-like grid, which might make it a extra partaking expertise.
That additionally leads into the video tab thought, which Musk has famous is coming quickly.
A separate in-app tab for movies might then be the following step, with a TikTok-like stream of video content material, that customers can simply scroll via, showcasing the most effective of Twitter’s video uploads in real-time.
Which Twitter has explored up to now, otherwise.
In December 2021, Twitter trialed a full-screen feed for Explore, which put extra emphasis on video content material.
Twitter shelved that experiment earlier than Elon took over, however with a renewed give attention to video, it might make a comeback – and we’ve already seen that Musk is eager to roll out older ideas and designs, with a view to boosting person engagement.
Which additionally results in one other new check – Twitter’s seeking to roll out in-line pictures inside longer tweets, which may now by as much as a staggering 10,000 characters in length.
As you possibly can see on this instance, Twitter Blue subscribers will quickly have the ability to add pictures into their longer tweets, making them extra like weblog posts – and extra like Twitter’s ‘Notes’ long-form possibility which it launched, then shelved, last year.
Which I personally keep is a greater format for long-form content material within the app, versus the ‘Present Extra’ lengthy tweets. However utilization information will finally inform the story.
The subsequent stage, then, in Twitter’s broader push for internet hosting extra content material is enhanced monetization, which, at current, will likely be within the type of its recently re-launched Subscriptions option.
Initially referred to as ‘Tremendous Follows’, Twitter’s now seeking to get extra customers to supply subscriber-only content material, to be able to assist them monetize their Twitter following.
As a part of this, Twitter’s covering the costs of staff who subscribe to creators in the app to assist construct hype, whereas it’s additionally contemplating a brand new subscriber content preview display, to assist entice your viewers.
That would immediate extra subscribers to enroll – although additionally it is price noting that Twitter’s preliminary experiments with Tremendous Follows didn’t recommend that many customers have been overly thinking about paying to subscribe to customers within the app, at the very least at that stage.
In Could final yr, eight months after the preliminary launch of Tremendous Follows, Twitter reported that its income from subscriptions and information licensing truly decreased by 31% year-over-year within the interval. Which isn’t particular to Tremendous Follows, however it does recommend that curiosity within the possibility was possible very low.
Nonetheless, Elon and Co. stay assured that it is a key progress pathway, and that Twitter can ultimately present higher income potential than YouTube – which pays out over $10 billion a year to creators, on common.
That’s a lofty goal, however perhaps, with these new presentation and engagement choices, Twitter can construct on its potential on this respect.
