And now, it is time to dive into how Twitter makes its money; this is one of the most popular and the most addictive social media platforms on the planet.
The platform is the place known for speaking your voice; people use it to demand accountability, and also Twitter is known as one of the best that does not censor its users.
With Twitter, users connect on the social media platform by sharing short posts known as tweets. The site can be accessed through an app on your smartphone or your desktop by visiting the site itself.
Because Twitter is also one of the free social media sites globally, users do not know how it makes its revenue.
However, unlike Instagram, Telegram, and WhatsApp, Twitter has a clear path to generate its revenue.
Before we go any further, let us look at Twitter and what it does. Then we can start talking about money.
What Is Twitter?
It is a microblogging website and social media platform where users share short posts referred to as tweets.
The site was first launched in 2006 as an SMS platform with a restriction of 140 characters before it grew over the years to the Twitter we all know today.
Twitter now boasts over a hundred million users on the site daily. Users who have registered can post tweets, receive them, and like them, while those who have not registered can only read the tweets.
They cannot post tweets. Twitter is also a place where brands are promoted and share ideas.
How Twitter Makes Money
Now, let us look at how the popular social media platform makes its money.
There are several ways through which Twitter makes money. Unlike Telegram or WhatsApp, which does not have a definite path of generating cash,
Twitter generates money from several sources. Below are some of the ways through which Twitter generates its revenue.
Advertising Services
The social media giant offers advertising services to brands and users through its promoted products.
Through these advertising services, twitter gets paid to advertise, making it one of its revenue generators.
Promoted Accounts
Twitter suggests new accounts for users to follow. These are promoted accounts and are shown to the user based on his preferences, location, and activity.
Some users look to gain more visibility and increase their followers on social media sites. Such users will then pay Twitter to promote their accounts to appear as the top suggestions when users are looking for new accounts to follow.
When a user clicks on a promoted account, Twitter will receive its promotion money.
Promoted Trends
A topic becomes a trend when its related keywords are mentioned many times in tweets by other accounts.
This makes the topic popular, and it becomes a ‘trend.’ Some companies take advantage of Twitter’s promoted trends, and they pay Twitter to advertise their related brands and products when there is a trend.
For example, Liverpool Football Club may pay Twitter to promote the soccer team during football season or when there is a big game like a UEFA Champions League game.
- Promoted Tweets
People can also pay Twitter to promote their tweets, and these will appear on a user’s timeline as ‘promoted.’ Users see these tweets as a result of Twitter using their activity data.
Twitter earns its money behind the scenes as users consume the promoted tweets.
Data Licensing
This is the second biggest revenue generator for the social media site. Twitter sells subscriptions to public data to several companies and developers looking to search and evaluate historical data on the Twitter platform.
These companies draw data from over a hundred million users’ activities daily, and they use these to cater to their consumer needs personally for their target audience.
Conclusion
All these are some of the ways through which Twitter makes money. Of course, for a social media website this big, there are several more ways to generate money.
The ones listed here are just a few of those ways. However, with all these income streams, Twitter is still in its infancy when it comes to generating revenue from its services.
However, this is expected to grow when one looks at how the site is increasing yearly.
