X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has decided to no longer allow brands to promote their accounts within the platform’s timeline to attract new followers. According to a report by Axios, Promoted Accounts — or Follower Objective ads — generates more than $100 million annually in global revenue for the platform. This is also one of the oldest ad formats offered by X. Axios’s report also stated that this change is driven by X’s product group, not the revenue side of the company. “This comes as part of a larger effort to optimize the X experience by prioritizing content formats,” stated the report.
Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, announced the platform’s rebranding on July 23rd, 2023. It’s a tough time for micro-blogging platform Twitter. It has lost almost half of its advertising revenue since Musk’s takeover. Since his takeover Musk sacked about half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff when he came on board in an effort to cut costs.
Recently, the platform announced that it will start sharing revenue with creators on its platform. This means that creators can get a share in ad revenue, starting with the replies to their posts. “This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter. We’re rolling out the program more broadly later this month, and all eligible creators will be able to apply,” Twitter said in a blog post.