Monetising Twitter followers

Twitter (TWTR) shares rose 1.6 per cent on Wednesday after the company announced the test launch of its Super Follows paid tweets feature. The feature will allow you to earn money from your Twitter followers by sharing some of your content through a monthly subscription model.

Twitter (TWTR) shares, up 21% YTD and 15% over the last quarter, rose 1.63% on Wednesday amid the test launch of the Super Follows paid tweets feature. The feature is still valid for some adult US iOS users with an audience of 10,000 or more, with requirements including more than 25 tweets in the past 30 days.

At the same time, the company stressed that the free content format on the platform will remain.

Subscribers in the U.S. and Canada with an iOS device will be able to subscribe to the paid tweets. The company said that the Super Follows feature will be expanded to iOS users worldwide in the next few weeks, but will soon appear on Android and twitter.com as well. Twitter said the feature could be relevant to public figures, activists, journalists, gamers or experts in some field.

Facebook (FB) also launched a new Bulletin platform this summer with the ability for content creators to earn money by inviting prominent journalists and correspondents. In doing so, Facebook said it would not charge a commission on the authors' subscriptions.

Interestingly, it is also rumoured that Twitter's platform could soon feature a bitcoin payment option in its Tip Jar feature, as MacRumors wrote about. Tip Jar currently supports payment platforms such as PayPal (PYPL), Venmo, Cash App and others.

On Wednesday, Twitter also announced the addition of a "Safe Mode", which aims to restrict users who want to "protect" themselves from insults or hate speech. When this mode is enabled users will be able to temporarily block accounts for seven days for using such unwanted messages.

"We want people on Twitter to enjoy healthy communication," the company said. Safe mode can be enabled in settings, and at launch it will be available to a small group of users on iOS, Android and Twitter.com who have English settings enabled.