First, it’s important to note how Twitter makes its money. In a Medium piece, Steven Levy writes that while Twitter’s user growth has continually disappointed Wall Street, it’s met revenue expectations far faster than many expected, hitting an estimated $1.375 billion in revenue last year. Twitter earned this cash through promoted tweets and trends that worm their way into users’ feeds. Crucially, Levy writes, advertisers do not pay based on how many people see the tweets; they pay based on how many people engage with them by retweeting, favoriting, or clicking a link.

That’s been Twitter’s revenue strategy all along. Rather than focus solely on building its user base (though, to be sure, Twitter is rightly concerned about that, too) it works to create an experience that leads to highly-engaged users who will be more likely to interact with each other in positive ways — and that includes brands.