X introduced creator payments back in Feb 2023 and the program has largely remains unchanged, until now. If you’re an X user with a Premium subscription, and have more than 5 million organic impressions in the last 3 months, have more than 500 verified followers, you’re in.
Being part of the creator revenue sharing program means you get a cut of the overall revenue that X as a platform brings in each fortnight.
The payment you receive changes based on an algorithm that’s private, but as we understand it, is based on the volume of engagement (likes, replies) from verified users on your posts.
This week, something changed, after a post from Zoomer (@zoomyzoomm) and account with 25k followers, amassed Millions of views.
Over the weekend, X payments went out to creators and Zoomer was a little surprised at the payout from this volume of engagement – just $1,500, at the time, the post had 173M impressions.
What happened next was unprecedented.
The head of product at X, Nikita Bier replied with a simple post ‘check again’. As requested, Zoomer checked his revenue share payouts again to reveal a bonus payment had landed in his account.
Zoomer shared that a new, one off, flat fee of $10,000 had been paid. At first it appeared as if the algorithm failed and this was a correction, however the exact figure of 10k indicated something different had occurred here.
Bier followed up with a post providing further context to the unique payment. This confirmed X is exploring new ways to recognize and reward creators who were the original catalyst of a global trend or discussion.
This has seen a mix of reactions from creators on X, many unhappy with the change. The main issue raised include a lack of clarity in what qualifies for ‘global trends’ is this a specific volume of engagements, or requires the platform to correlate copycat posts that occur after the original?
It is also unclear how this impacts the overall pool of funds from X’s Ad Revenue, how many of these $10k payments are going to be made per fortnight, as this would potentially take away from payments to other creators.
These complaints feel justified as the game of monetization should have clearly defined rules and if new changes are coming, they should be shared ahead of time, not retrospectively after a complaint, that’s a bad look.
The positive take is that this encourages users to be more creative, in the hope of a bonus payout, which could see more content on the platform, aligning with the greater objective reducing regretted minutes on X.
It is unfortunately that the first post that earned the bonus payout was not particularly creative, rather simply a copy paste of content from a competing platform, with just 4 words added ‘Steve Jobs daughter btw’. This is not an example of creativity and those who spend many hours crafting articles, videos, threads and unique content for X, should feel rightly miffed this didn’t go to a more deserving candidate.
What are your thoughts on the change? Leave your comments below.
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