2011 23
How Twitter can really make money
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Internet & Technology with No Comments
Image via CrunchBase
Twitter just tried that useless sponsored trend bar that is of no benefit to users known as the “dickbar”. After this failure, Twitter will probably try regular ads. That will be less annoying but still not the current Twitter experience. Now one way Twitter could make tons of money and keep their wonderful experience intact is to charge businesses. How would this work? Well if a brand wants to be on Twitter, and most brands in the world already are, so say if they want to STAY on twitter, they will be charged something like $10 per month per every 1000 followers they have on Twitter. Why would the brands pay? Because they use twitter to reach their customers. In this way it is brands that will think about how to make the best use of Twitter and Twitter continues to look and feel the same way while they make money for bringing followers to businesses.
Facebook could do the same btw, charge businesses to open pages and groups and let people do it for free.
In all this I would make an exception for media businesses or businesses who enrich the eco system.
Related articles
- Why the Quick Bar (“dickbar”) is still so offensive (marco.org)
- Justin Williams on Twitter’s Dickbar (carpeaqua.com)
- Jeff Rock on Twitter’s Dickbar (jeffrock.com)
- Twitter Employees Build An Actual #Dickbar Bar (businessinsider.com)
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Ouriel Ohayon on March 23, 2011 ·
i agree, if the business premium with a set of professional services: better discovery, analytics, promotion tools, collaboration mecanisms, follower generator,….btw those could be “apps” in the twitter ecosystem where brands would pay an extra
A business twitter app store…
Martin Varsavsky on March 23, 2011 ·
Ouriel I see a simple model, you are a business, you come on Twitter to promote yourself, you pay something that will mean little to you but a lot to Twitter, as it is the case now with Google.
Amit Shaked on March 23, 2011 ·
Martin, don’t you think it will be hard to enforce such “paid followers” policy, since a “brand” (the smart ones, anyway) doesn’t have just one single Twitter account representing it – there are many different users tweeting and re-tweeting across the board with brand-related messages; many of them are genuine people who like the brans or just interested
Simon Hakim on March 23, 2011 ·
Haven’t they already announced analytics http://blogs.webtrends.com/blog/2010/09/22/twitter-is-releasing-a-real-time-analytics-solution-in-q4/#?
Most clients don’t understand Twitter. I think Twitter could take the lead here by educating the business market. Having tools as Ouriel suggests definitely helps and reinforces the power of Twitter. At the moment this is left up to other so called “social media gurus”.
Sergi Xaudiera on March 23, 2011 ·
Martin, I like the idea, but I don’t think that the number of followers is a good variable. Most of the accounts on Twitter are zombies -non active users- so this metrics wouldn’t be realistic. Maybe X$ per X active users could be a better variable.
Sergi
Martin Varsavsky on March 23, 2011 ·
the main idea of my post is to charge businesses for using twitter, one way can be according to the number of followers they get but it is up to Twitter how to fine tune this concept
Sergi Xaudiera on March 23, 2011 ·
I guess Twitter is already working in that line, promoted accounts, promoted trends, and the official Twitter metrics are mostly used by business -and being charged for it. By this time is the main source of income
sreekumar sukumaran on March 23, 2011 ·
It is difficult to identify the users profile. Better if options are given to users with preferential treatment.
Ben on March 23, 2011 ·
It is really easier than you think to make money off of twitter once you know what you’re doing, I own an amazing piece of software that does all the work for me and makes me an extra $400 a month online and I’m willing to share that software with you, read about it at http://moneywithtwittenator.blogspot.com it’s really incredible
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Simon Hakim on March 23, 2011 ·
Hi Martin,
I believe this is a very simple solution. Surely Twitter have already considered this? Some questions and challenges I see are as follows:
1. Do you also charge celebrities as they are brands too?
2. How do you police this and enforce payments on a global scale?
3. What happens if people, companies, brands don’t agree and refuse to pay? If you stop their account then surely there would be a massive backlash.
4. Having said all that, I like the idea. If Facebook can change the rules of usage then why not Twitter.
Cheers,
Simon
Martin Varsavsky on March 23, 2011 ·
I would not charge media companies or celebrities nor anyone who brings true value to the eco system. I would charge the tons of companies who have offers to their twitter followers, etc.