The holiday season is fast approaching, and for the first time, major social media platforms are unveiling extensive, even full-screen advertisements promoting their own subscription services and in-app products. This shift represents a significant change in how these platforms engage with their user base, signaling a move toward monetization strategies that leverage their vast reach.

On one hand, this strategy makes sense as it allows these platforms to maximize their audience reach and enhance their revenue streams. However, it can also come across as intrusive or, in some cases, even a bit desperate, as users are bombarded with promotional content that can disrupt their experience.

To illustrate, X has initiated full-screen pop-up promotions for its subscription service, X Premium. These pop-ups are challenging to dismiss, with the close button often obscured by the advertisement’s coloring, leading to user frustration and a potential negative impact on user experience.

Despite the app’s declining user base and the fact that less than 1% of its audience is currently subscribed to X Premium, the platform remains determined to convert more users into paying customers. This relentless push for subscriptions highlights the challenges X faces in its bid to secure a sustainable revenue model.

Subscriptions were a fundamental part of Elon Musk’s growth strategy for X, with initial projections suggesting that X Premium subscriptions (previously known as “Twitter Blue”) would reach 9 million users by now, generating substantial supplementary revenue for the platform. However, the actual numbers tell a different story, with only around 1.3 million profiles estimated to have signed up for the service so far.

Musk had ambitious plans, predicting that X Premium could reach an impressive 104 million subscribers by 2028, reducing the platform’s reliance on advertising revenue. To achieve these lofty goals, X must implement more aggressive marketing strategies, such as these full-screen promotions, to enhance user awareness and engagement with their subscription offerings.

Moreover, X is also exploring innovative options like X Premium gifting, allowing users to gift subscriptions to friends or family, potentially increasing sign-ups through social sharing and engagement.

Although it seems unlikely that these promotions will significantly increase X Premium subscriptions, which, at this point, lack compelling features for many users, the platform is committed to making Premium a success. It is striving to utilize every tactic available within the app to drive user adoption and engagement.

Similarly, Meta is capitalizing on its valuable advertising space to promote its virtual reality (VR) headsets, which are crucial to its ambitious metaverse plans. As the company continues to innovate in the VR space, it aims to attract users to its immersive experiences.

As you may have noticed, Meta is currently running prominent promotions for Meta Quest at the top of user feeds on both Facebook and Instagram. This strategy aims to drive interest and participation in its growing VR ecosystem, making it a key player in the future of digital interactions.

However, similar to X Premium, the hard sell for Meta is that there are currently limited compelling reasons for consumers to invest in a VR headset. While the technology holds immense potential and continues to evolve with new games and features, the current range of VR applications is still fairly restricted, making it less of a must-have gadget for consumers at this stage.

Regardless, exposing ads to billions of users is a strategy that cannot be overlooked, as it helps drive brand visibility and user interest.

Finally, Snapchat is also aggressively promoting Snapchat+ directly to user inboxes, further integrating its subscription service into the user experience.

This approach can feel somewhat intrusive, and collectively, these promotional efforts create an experience where these social apps resemble shopping platforms more than social interaction spaces. However, many users have become adept at tuning out excessive promotional content, which allows them to navigate their feeds with relative ease.

Nevertheless, this transition signifies a noteworthy shift, as social media platforms evolve into more direct commercial entities, capitalizing on their advertising capabilities to drive product sales. These platforms have access to unique promotional options that can capture user attention like never before.

While this trend may not be ideal, as social apps further commodify their offerings, it appears that this approach may become the new standard in the industry, reshaping the way users interact with social media.