I’m paying Elon Musk’s blue checkmark ransom. Let’s see what happens

Over the past six months, engagement with my Twitter followers has plummeted. Roughly speaking, this crash in interaction levels has corresponded with Elon Musk’s acquisition and subsequent meddling with the proven Twitter formula.

Also: 60% of U.S. Twitter users took breaks from it in the past year

I have long relied on my Twitter account as a way to interact with my readers and viewers. I have gotten excellent feedback on articles, ideas for new articles, and the occasional mean-spirited but hugely helpful technical tips and answers from the disagreeable givers who populate the Twitterverse (and all social networking).

But the crash in engagement levels has resulted in far fewer of those valuable interactions. It’s measurable. I went from a four-month rolling average of about 14,000 interactions a month to just about 5,000.

Now, clearly, some of that drop is due to the number of people who have abandoned Twitter due to the changes wrought by Mr. Musk. According to a tweet by Musk on March 27, only those with verified accounts will have their tweets show in the For You section of the Twitter feed. For most people, that’s the only place they look.

This seems to imply that those of us who have not paid for blue checkmarks won’t show up in the Twitter feed — meaning, we’re effectively silenced from the social media platform.

Also: How to fix your Instagram feed

I obviously disagree with Musk’s decision to do this, but I’m not going to debate that here. For me, the ability to interact via Twitter has been one of my core tools. And if placement in the Twitter feed is now pay-to-play, that’s the new reality.

My question is whether the other changes to Twitter make so-called “priority placement” worth it. Are people still engaging with Twitter? No other platform has successfully supplanted Twitter yet.

Clearly tools like Mastodon and BlueSky have some interest, but they just don’t have the readership. I have 20,000+ followers on Twitter. Even if I lose a percentage of them to abandonment of the platform, I’d still have a lot more followers on Twitter than the less than ten followers I have on Mastodon.

Also: The best Twitter alternatives

So, I decided to pay the ransom, pony up the $8/month for the blue checkmark, and hopefully buy myself back into my audience’s Twitter feeds.

We’ll see. I’ll track performance over the next four to eight months and report back to you. I’ll probably do one report in a month, just to see what first impressions are, and then another some months later.

Stay tuned. I’ll be back in a while to let you know if paying the blue checkmark ransom has provided any value.

Also: Meta is developing a ‘sanely run’ Twitter alternative: Here’s what we know

Are you paying the eight dollar Twitter Blue fee? Do you still use Twitter? What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.