Advanced innovations that bring marketing and social media together – Sahil Chopra, Founder and CEO, icubeswire
Inspired by the upcoming Super Follows feature of Twitter, Instagram is now working on a tool that will let creators post exclusive content to their Instagram stories only available to subscribers who may have to pay money for premium membership. Is this the future for content creators and may sound a death knell to other smaller players offering similar features like Celebfie etc.
The vast sphere of marketing and social media is highly competitive, with each platform innovating to outdo the rest. Technology touches our lives in more ways than we know, and we are seeing a revolutionary change in the way we interact. Technological breakthroughs have brought exchanging information and communicating with our friends and family at the tip of our fingertips. Now, we can stay in touch with our circle through social media platforms on the go.
Recently, Twitter apprised the masses of the new changes coming to the social media platform. The platform will provide exclusive content and groups access, allowing users to join them based on their interests. Nevertheless, the feature that grabbed the most attention is the Super Follows, giving Twitter users to charge their followers for exclusive content. The content could be bonus tweets, access to a community group, newsletters, or a support badge. We also saw a mockup screenshot where a user pays $4.99/month to enjoy these benefits. With this feature in place, the social media platforms will see a massive surge in content creation as monetary benefits will invite more content creators on board.
Facebook Groups have been here for a while now, and Twitter is responding with Communities, where people sharing similar interests like food, dogs will be able to create and join groups. In addition, Twitter will allow the users to see more tweets on such topics.
Direct payment tools have emerged as a blessing for content creators, allowing their fans to support their work. For example, Patreon is changing how we appreciate art by making it easier for fans to motivate the creatives they love through a monthly membership. Similarly, social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube, and even Github have taken the lead by releasing their digital payment tool. Twitter is now following the trail with its subscriptionbased model to offer revenue to the content creators.
Likewise, there has been news around Instagram developing a new feature like Twitter’s Super Follows. The feature is going to give content creators the ability to create exclusive stories only accessible by subscribers. However, we are yet to hear more from the company on the upcoming subscription model.
Social media platforms are working towards acknowledging a content creator’s reliance on third-party tools to monetize their work. Twitter and Instagram have taken a step in the direction of creating a subscription-based environment. In June, the head of Instagram, adam Mosseri, in a video, said, Instagram is not just a photo-sharing app anymore and shared the forthcoming features and innovations.
People have been paying for services like food deliveries, newspapers, and magazines since the beginning of time. Subscription-based business models are not something new, and companies have embraced the business model to ensure a consistent mode of revenue. However, social media platforms are pressing the pedal to the medal and are shifting their focus to creators, giving them ways to monetize their work, which they rightfully deserve. However, we might be walking close towards the demise of third-party apps and platforms that work towards monetizing the relationship between creators and their followers.
What the future holds for content creators?
The market for content creators is on the rise, with more people looking for highquality content. as a result, blogging is here to stay, and most companies have begun farming out blog management services to churn out engaging content for their audience.
Depending on their follower base, independent content creators will attract more brands than ever for collaborations and influencer marketing. Besides generating revenue in exchange for exclusive content, content creators will delight in more lucrative benefits. Moreover, brands will look forward to tie-ups with relevant content creators to create content aligned with brand or product promotion and drive conversions. • Content creators will place videos at the heart of their marketing strategy, as Instagram and other social media platforms strive to catch up to Youtube, which dominates the video space. adam Mosseri, CEO, Instagram, also announced that Instagram would soon display full-screen video recommendations on the user’s feed. Since most apps will follow the trend and introduce subscription-only content, we might witness some reluctance in users to subscribe during the initial phases. Therefore, content creators will need to be wary of the content being served to non-subscribers to keep winning more followers and prompting them to subscribe for more content.
We are still unsure when we can expect these upcoming changes to occur. Still, content creators and marketers must stay on their toes to embrace these changes and begin working around marketing strategies aligned with the lined-up innovations to dominate the digital space. ■
“Social media platforms are working towards acknowledging a content creator’s reliance on third-party tools to monetize their work. Twitter and Instagram have taken a step in the direction of creating a subscription-based environment. In June, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, in a video, said, Instagram is not just a photosharing app anymore and shared the forthcoming features and innovations”