The Pros and Cons of Making Money With Twitter
June 8, 2009 by
Adam
Filed under
Entrepreneurship, Personal Development
It’s refreshing to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well, especially with new enhancements to technology. Take Twitter for example. It is, in and of itself, a fantastic technological advancement, but so are the income producing programs that have been created. We’ve seen many innovative applications branch off from an existing service, but as with anything, there are positives and negatives. Let’s take a look at the programs that enable you to make money with Twitter.
Without a doubt, Twitter is an excellent business communication tool, allowing more efficient contact with customers. While it has all the makings for a great advertising vehicle, Twitter as of yet has no formal advertising program. So taking your Twitter use to the next level and starting a Twitter advertising program means finding a balance between a sales pitch and a tweet that will lead potential buyers to your website.
If you blog on Twitter and have a good number of followers, this becomes an appealing vehicle for advertisers. You can actually generate income for a blog you are already producing. Of course, you’ll have to be open to running an advertising pitch at the end of your message, which may or may not offend some of your followers.
Twittad is probably the most structured and established program where you can make money using your Twitter profile. One option is to sell ad space on your Twitter account. You list it on Twittad, name your price based on your followers, and if you accept the ad, it will be added to your Twitter profile. Each time the ad is clicked upon, you earn money.
The other Twittad option is its opt-in advertiser campaign. This is particularly useful for entrepreneurs on Twitter because you can send a tweet advertising a product and earn income by doing it.
While it appears Twitter has the makings for some substantial income producing opportunities, advertising gurus point out some of its potential downfalls. For example, Twitter’s retention rate is less than 50%, which means those who visit your Twitter profile once, may not return again. That makes it a bit more challenging to meet your goals for online audience reach.
While there is much hype surrounding Twitter right now, the question is whether it can maintain it long-term. Keep in mind that some find Twitter’s interface a bit confusing, which means many are still trying to figure out its intricacies, like trying to follow conversation threads and figuring out direct messages and retweets.
Whether or not the pros outweigh the cons is a personal decision. But considering the vast audience that Twitter attracts, it’s a sure bet it’s evolution will include an advertising program. For entrepreneurs, that could mean a promising addition to current online advertising opportunities.
If you’ve tried any income producing programs on Twitter or have your own ways of making money using Twitter, we invite you to share them with other entrepreneurs. Leave your feedback and suggestions in a comment.
Adam Toren
I think of using twitter for ads as mostly a “beta” affair at this stage — I don’t think the site was built with money making in mind. Furthermore, the potentially offensive ad pitches you refer to are becoming very unlikely to bear fruit given the number of phishing scams on the site. If twitter were to adopt extended validation ssl, or some kind of encryption technology to weed out malevolent content with green url bars or the like, that would be one thing — as it stands, however, any ad content that I post has to cut through an awful lot of spammy tripe.
But, I’m hopeful. I’ve seen a handful of 3rd party twit apps on the horizon that show promise, although I’m not sure about twittad — seems like just “adsense” for twitter, no?
I myself would really never use twitter to make money…
Despite of the possibility that less than 50% visitors of my profile may not return again, but still I will take the advantage of reaching them.
I use twitter only for the traffic value. It’s a great way to keep in touch with your audience and they like it that they don’t have to necessarily subscribe to an RSS feed if they don’t know what it is.
If you would have asked me a few days ago, I would have said you can’t make money with twitter, much like with the other social networking sites. However, just the other day I read an article about how Dell made some $3M off twitter this week alone. I might setup a test marketing campaign with Twitter to see how it goes.
I feel the main problem with twittad is the background itself. So many people are using 3rd party twitter applications to receive their tweets. So much so that i very much doubt that people are actually looking at profile pages anymore. Probably the only time your actual profile page will be viewed is when someone is adding you as a friend.
There is revtwt.com and be-a-magpie.com which offer ads mixed in with your everyday tweets. But generally they feel so invasive. And more then anything just peeve off your followers. But at least those tweets are going to be seen by ALL your followers, not just those who view your profile.
One of the greatest issues I’ve had with twitter marketing is the reliability of the url shortening. If the system goes down, the links become redundant.
Twitter can be great, but again, relying on it solely as your social marketing source of revenue is putting all your eggs in one basket.
Setting up a network of social marketing advertising gives you a few extra legs to balance your table on.