Twitter Goes Ad-Free for Verified Users
Basic Twitter users often see promoted or sponsored tweets on their timelines. Verified users, on the other hand like celebrities and notable figures, who are some of Twitter's most valuable members, do not see these advertisements.
So Many Followers, So Little Time . . . for Ads
Tech reporter for the Guardian Alex Hern wondered in September why he was not seeing advertisements on his verified account. When he asked Twitter about this, he got a statement from the social media company that basically said if verified users keep tweeting and gaining followers, they will not be forced to view these advertisements in their timelines.
In September I asked Twitter why @jyarow and I were getting no ads on our verified accounts. Got this statement: pic.twitter.com/Jac1oBBKc8
— Alex Hern (@alexhern) January 26, 2016
"We're constantly tweaking our algorithms around how often and whom we show ads to, so from time to time some people on Twitter won't see Promoted Tweets. We put an emphasis on relevance and quality, and these relevance models take into account individual users' behaviour and preferences," Twitter told Hern.
Verified Users Bring the Boys to the Yard
Verified Twitter users often have hundreds of thousands of followers and keep basic users on the service, according to Tech Radar. To keep these verified users happy and continuing to tweet, Twitter is rewarding them by eliminating ads.
You Gotta be Super Fly to Verify
Twitter considers verified users to be "highly sought users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business and other key interest areas," according to the company's support page. Twitter reaches out to these users and does not accept requests to be verified.
Verified users are notated by a blue check mark next to their names inside their profiles.
Twitter has seen its stock price plummet in recent months, and the company is trying to stay competitive with Facebook. Facebook has over 1 billion users, while Twitter has just over 300 million.
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