With the start of the stay-at-home process, the place of social media in our lives has become more evident. Thus, the founders, who started to evaluate the hours we spend in social media applications and sites as a monetary opportunity, started to adapt each social media platform towards the age of paid subscription.

This process first started with Youtube’s announcement of Youtube Premium paid subscription with video download and background play feature. When you want to continue using the application in this process, which starts with a 1-month free trial period and then you have an option to cancel it. Also, it offers pricing options based on monthly individual, family, and children tier packages.

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Let’s continue with Clubhouse, which is built on the concepts of scarcity and exclusivity after YouTube and makes its voice heard by all social media users. Here, unlike the platforms where we are used to sharing visuals and videos, you can only listen to the speeches made with audio and have a say in the discussions by entering the rooms with the topics that you have interest on.

Although the subscription is not yet paid, Clubhouse has a different and effective method that makes users feel limited. In order to become a member for free, it is necessary to have an iOS operating system phone and to receive an invitation from a user who is using the application. Moreover, there are rumors that the platform will be paid in the future.

If we take a look at the latest updates of Twitter and Tinder, noticing the positive attitude of users to limited memberships, we see that new updates and features have been added to direct users to paid subscriptions.

Last week, the era of ”super-like” started on Tinder which is a popular dating app. While using the application, dozens of people come to you to match and it becomes difficult to choose the person you like. For this reason, it has been added to Tinder as a feature that will allow you to stay at the top of super-like matches. You will be shown to the person you super-liked with, not just with a heart, but with a new blue star. This feature can only be used by Tinder Plus members. So, this requires users to be paid a subscription fee.

 

In this period when all social media platforms were changing, it announced the ”super follow” feature on Twitter. By subscribing to the accounts of content producers and publishers whose content they like and want to support, users will be able to access their subscriber-exclusive posts, lists, or videos. In short, there will be a subscription system to the content producer in the super follows feature within an affordable fee.

Why Scarcity and Exclusivity Attract Users?

These two concepts, which are frequently used in the marketing world, are used by important social media channels such as YouTube, Clubhouse and Twitter. If we look at the number of users of social media platforms today and the time we spend on these platforms, we can see that they are increasingly affecting the lives of users.

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 That’s why some users around the world have begun to take action to reduce their “screen time” and give more time to themselves. Moreover, the negative effects on our lives in areas such as health, education and communication are increasingly being talked about and frequently become a current issue.

 Despite all these changes, there are also social media platforms that remain silent.

We’re waiting eagerly, what’s next?

 

Sources:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-lets-users-monetize-tweets-with-super-follow/397227/#close 

https://www.inc.com/jonathan-steiman/i-reduced-my-screen-time-by-50-percent-it-wasnt-that-hard-heres-how-i-did-it.html 

https://unsplash.com/photos/60GsdOMRFGc