A post with 19.6 million impressions.

This is how much money X.com (formerly Twitter) paid me for a post with 19.6 million impressions

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Why you shouldn’t expect to get a payout at all off of one viral post/tweet.

During the last few days of December, I posted a post on X.com/Twitter that went viral in the traditional sense of the word.

I saw what, to me, was a ridiculous short article from The U.S. Sun informing its readers that, “Drivers are just realizing that Toyota and Lexus are actually just one brand – and you’re paying more for the same car.“

I jokingly asked my 1000+ followers if this was for real? And, how long have they been keeping this a secret from us?

Here’s the post on X below.

My followers know that all I post about is cars and car adjacent topics. Those that really know me know that I’ve been writing about cars in some capacity since 2014.

Of course, everyone else on X doesn’t know that and thought I really didn’t know Lexus was just a fancy Toyota and retweeted/replied to my tweet.

For the next three days, my tweet went viral and, by the end of the bell curve of traffic, I racked up nearly 20 million impressions.

The first day it went viral, I didn’t think of trying to profit from it.

But then, I googled how much you can potentially get from a post and found that, generally, Premium X users who signed up for ad revenue sharing earn around $10 per million impressions.

Each million impressions on X roughly equals $10, but there’s some criteria you need to be aware of.

Knowing that impressions were still rolling in and, at the current rate, I’d rack up a couple million more impressions once this post died out, I signed up for X Premium.

Only X Premium subscribers can earn money from their posts.

At that point, 14 million impressions already happened but figured another million would cover the $8 cost for a month of premium and, from then on, I’d be in the money.

It’s free money, right?

Well, not exactly.

By the time the viral tweet ended its run, I racked up another 5 million impressions, which, according to the estimated earnings above, is potentially worth a $50 payout.

This post racked up 19.6 million impressions.

Well, the first X payout date after my viral tweet came and went. And, even though I signed up for revenue sharing, there was no payout.

Mind you, the payment threshold is just $10.

Then a second payout date came and went and still, no payout.

That was no fluke, and it looks like I didn’t even make enough to reach the threshold amount.

I then watched this video below and learned that, not all posts on X, however viral, earn ad money.

First, like the title of the program states “Ad revenue sharing” money is earned from Ads. If no ads are shown on your post, the post isn’t earning money.

I noticed then, and even scroll through today (with a still active X premium subscription, I’ll get to that shortly) there are no ads shown.

The posts that earn a lot of money are from X users with lots of followers who post threads with multiple posts in it (one after the other), and who post tweets with high engagement in the replies (debate, conversation), or a combo of both.

Even if my post got a billion impressions, since the ad service deemed my post not worthy of ads to be shown, even in the replies, I’d earn $0.

At that point, I hoped that, perhaps, if I stayed on X premium another month, I’d at least reach the $10 threshold, somehow (sunk cost.)

But, after two months on X Premium (yes, I gave $16 to Elno) and several X.com premium paydays passing, although it said I was on track for a payout, I supposedly never made enough to reach the minimum threshold of $10.

As of Feb 29, I canceled my Premium subscription and any chance to earn from my future posts.

O whale, the experiment to earn from one viral tweet came to a conclusion.

Take it from me, if you think you can earn dozens of dollars because one of your posts went viral, and you immediately signed up for Premium to qualify for ad revenue sharing, you might, but probably won’t make a penny.

Earning from X is a long term game and, if you enjoy posting and building an audience because it’s a part of your passion, that’s the way to go.

Then, along the way, if you qualify for revenue sharing and have a sizeable audience that engages with your posts, maybe think about signing up for Premium.

Otherwise, just reply with anything you want to promote, like your own work or a cause.

Me? I promoted one of my better blog posts.

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