Twitter Adds New Super Follows Notification Options as it Works to Develop its Subscriber Tools

Twitter has added some new enhancements for its Super Follows creator monetization tools, including a separate ‘Super Followers’ notification tab for creators, and a new way for subscribers to get specific alerts from only the accounts that they’re paying to follow in the app.

First off, for creators – late last week, Twitter launched a new ‘Super Followers’ only notifications stream, which segments those notifications from your regular alerts.

That’ll provide more opportunity for creators to specifically engage with their paying audience, enhancing community connection, and potentially giving people more reason to sign-up to follow them.

A big lure for Super Follows is the promise of more direct connection with platform stars, by alerting them that you are a paying subscriber. This new notifications stream enhances that capacity, and as noted, it could be a helpful complement in building an audience in the app.

For subscribers, meanwhile, they now have the opportunity to switch on notifications specifically for exclusive Super Follower tweets.

As you can see here, the new ‘Super Follower only Tweets’ option will enable users to get notifications only when these specific tweets are shared. That, again, could provide more opportunity to enhance engagement with paying subscribers, while also enabling users to ensure that they’re constantly updated with the latest tweets directed specifically at them, and other community members.

Twitter’s Super Follow is still establishing its footing, and building an audience

Originally opened for public applications in June last year, then expanded to all iOS users in October, Super Follows enables Twitter creators with more than 10k followers to set a monthly subscription fee (up to $9.99) to monetize additional, exclusive content for their most engaged followers in the app.

The challenge for creators, however, lies in generating real value with their Super Follower content – because while some might like to think that people will pay for their tweeted insights, which, up till now, they’ve been able to get for free, the reality is that if you’re not adding value, your audience will be hesitant to pay up, which poses a bigger content challenge for creators in segmenting their audience and facilitating more direct, valuable engagement with subscribers.

That’s not easy to do, and thus far, the evidence has suggested that Super Follows hasn’t caught on in any major way.

In its early going, app analytics provider Sensor Tower reported that Super Follows had only generated around $6,000 in the US, and around $600 in Canada, after its first two weeks of availability. At the minimum price point for Super Follows ($2.99), that would suggest that only 2 thousand users – or 0.005% of Twitter’s US user base – had subscribed to anyone in the app, and given the early launch push, and likely peak in user interest in that initial period, those aren’t overly positive signs that users will be willing to pay for exclusive tweets.

They are very early examples, though, and Twitter’s working to update and improve its modeling, and it’ll be interesting to see whether, over time, more profiles are able to work out more valuable offerings for their paying audience, in order to generate real, direct revenue from their Twitter presence.

In many ways, it’s a tough sell, in calling on people to pay for tweets, but additions like this will help enhance the exclusivity of the option, which could make it even more valuable, and help to generate more interest.