Hey, remember how MrBeast re-posted one of his old clips on X and made $260k from ad revenue share in a single week, and every single other X creator, who’s making about $1000 for similar numbers, was like “wtf”?
Well, that’s because X cheated the system, by enrolling MrBeast, a.k.a Jimmy Donaldson, into its Amplify video promotion offering, which no other creator can utilize, because up till now, it’s only been available to selected partner publishers in the app.
X has admitted to this, and it now says that it’s experimenting with MrBeast as an initial partner as part of a planned expansion of the Amplify program.
Super great to work with Mr Beast and team. He is trialing our new video monetization product which allows creators to earn a revenue share of pre-roll ads run on their videos.
This will soon be available, alongside reply monetization, to more creators on X. https://t.co/16Up8utk6j
— Evan Jones (@evanstnlyjones) January 27, 2024
Which wasn’t something that X openly promoted when it was initially looking to promote the success of Donaldson’s clip.
X creators can currently only monetize their content directly via its ad revenue share program, which provides creators with a percentage of the money taken in based on ads shown in the replies on their posts.
Making $250k in a week via that method would require a lot of replies, and it’s very unlikely that anybody could reach the type of performance required to hit such a high payout.
Which is why X creators were confused by MrBeast making so much, but Donaldson’s actually making additional money from sponsored the pre-roll ads displayed on his clip.
Which, given his popularity and reach, means that many brands were keen to pay up to get their promotions shown on the video.
So, with the Amplify program set to be expanded to all creators, does that mean that all X users will soon be able to make $250k per week from their video clips?
Well, not exactly.
X’s Amplify program does have a long list of parameters, which will limit who, exactly can use it. X hasn’t shared the requirements of entry for individual creators into the program, but it looks like X will be hand-picking specific creators to get a share of the ad intake from the initiative.
So it’s unlikely to be available to everyone, while you’re also not going to generate the interest that a big creator like MrBeast does, which will reduce the ad revenue share.
But still, if Donaldson can recreate that performance (he’s re-posted another clip to X this week), you can bet that other big name video creators will be paying attention, and will look to sign up to the program when it is made available to more users.
That could help X build its video eco-system, and get more people watching more content in the app.
So while not everyone will be seeing the types of payouts that Donaldson does, even a portion of that would be significant, and that could be enough to drive more video content through the app.
The real trick, however, would be in exclusives, and getting creators like MrBeast to abandon YouTube for X, bringing their big audiences with them.
That seems unlikely, but it’ll be interesting to see what sort of performance Donaldson sees over a few X re-posts, and how that impacts broader interest.
And with X also working on a dedicated video tab, that’ll all contribute to its new “video first” approach.
