Should you pay for Twitter Blue?

According to Twitter, “Twitter Blue is an opt-in, paid subscription that adds a blue checkmark to your account and offers early access to select features.” Some of those features include higher visibility, longer tweets, and fewer ads.

 

Twitter Blue is a relatively new system. But the ‘blue tick’ predates Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform. Historically, the blue tick was a badge of verification given for free by Twitter. Verification, as with all major social media platforms, was a stamp of authority.

 

The blue tick was an identifier for legitimate accounts and helped to protect social media users against the spread of misinformation.

 

 

Why has the blue tick become Twitter Blue?

 

The reason for turning verification from a free badge indicating authenticity into a premium subscription service mostly comes down to Musk’s pledge to make the struggling social media platform profitable by any means necessary.

 

Twitter’s official stance, however, is that the change is designed to ‘improve the quality of conversations on Twitter’ and thus will ‘reduce fake, untrustworthy accounts.’

 

The claim is, at the very least, unfounded. On 20 April 2023, Twitter began the removal of ‘legacy verified’ blue ticks. Predictably, chaos began to flood the platform.

 

A number of – paying – fake accounts began to appear, impersonating high-profile individuals and organisations. This is only the latest instalment of fake accounts assailing the Twitter Blue roll out. The chaotic and concentrated swell of misinformation affecting every stage has, unfortunately, become a trend.

 

 

What does Twitter Blue mean for charities?

 

Twitter, and social media in general, presents a great way for charities and non-profits to reach wider audiences, engage donors, raise money for great causes, and grow their brand reputation. Charities have been successfully raising funds through Twitter for years.

 

But Twitter has now confirmed that companies that wish to advertise on the platform are now required to pay for verification or reach a minimum monthly spend on ads (approximately $1,000 (£807) per month). It is not clear whether this includes charities and non-profits or only applies to businesses and corporations.

 

Charities are also being forced to consider the ethical and moral implications of their presence on Twitter. No matter the ‘perks’ of Twitter Blue, charities are required to uphold the basic principles of integrity and openness. The act of purchasing authenticity in the form of a blue tick contradicts those principles.

 

For charities considering whether to subscribe to Twitter Blue, we’ve outlined the perks vs the risks.

 

 

The perks of Twitter Blue

 

 

Increased visibility

 

The Twitter Blue algorithm prioritises content, replies, and mentions from Twitter Blue subscribers, meaning that Twitter Blue subscribers will receive increased visibility and reach across the platform. Twitter Blue also offers users the ability to “boost” tweets, meaning content will appear for longer and higher up in the feed.  

 

 

Longer tweets

 

Longer Tweets allow Twitter Blue subscribers to tweet up to 10,000 characters (the standard for non-subscribers is 280) and longer videos of up to 60 minutes long (or 2GB). The ‘reader’ function lets subscribers turn long threads into a more “beautiful” reading experience by giving options to read with “less noise” and increase text size.

 

 

Accessibility

 

Perhaps the most important feature of Twitter Blue for charities are the new accessibility features, including the option for larger text and high contrast mode. At the moment, these features apply only to the user experience. Read more features of Twitter Blue here.

 

 

The cons of Twitter Blue?

 

 

Increased visibility, but reach will be limited 

 

According to this analysis of Twitter’s recommendation algorithm, tweets from Blue subscribers will receive a 2 to 4x boost in the “ranking formula” but that does not equate to a 2x–4x increase in reach.

 

Regardless, Insider Intelligence predicts that Twitter usage will start to fall significantly in the UK, dropping around 5.1% in 2023, before dropping to a further 6.3% in 2024, the lowest level since 2018.

 

 

Longer tweets are unlikely to improve engagement

 

When it comes to social media marketing, the overwhelming advice is to keep everything clear and concise. Unlike other major social media platforms, Twitter has always been known for its strict character limit. Back in 2015, Wired found that users spend only about three seconds reading a tweet. More recent research suggests that social media is doing less and less to improve our attention spans.

 

 

Financial risk

 

At the time of writing, Twitter has experienced a total of six outages so far in 2023 and it is only April. Since Musk took over the platform, Twitter’s workforce has been reduced from around 7,500 employees to 2,000. The severe reduction to the engineering staff means that there are less people able to monitor systems and catch minor problems before they become major issues. Musk himself has called the platform “extremely brittle”.

 

Charities need to decide whether paying for a subscription (especially if they are required to reach the minimum £800 monthly spend on ads) is worth the money, time, effort, or energy it will take to make meaningful campaigns on an unstable platform.

 

 

Reputational damage

 

Twitter Blue has received considerable amounts of backlash, from individual users to celebrities, to major corporations. The fact is, Twitter Blue, rather than reducing “fake, untrustworthy accounts”, has made opportunities for impersonation, defamation, and the spread of misinformation easier than ever.

 

Authenticity is an essential part of the online contract between charities and their audiences. At a time when scepticism regarding how charities use their money and how they behave is still stubbornly persistent, choosing to invest in Twitter Blue could cause considerable reputational damage.

 

Twitter’s blue tick no longer stands an emblem of authenticity or that your identity has been verified. Instead, the blue tick has become the trademark of a paid for service. And the rewards so far seem to do very little to outweigh the substantial risks.