Twitter Corporate Tools By the End of the Year
Twitter executives have indicated for some time that they are getting ready to go after some revenue making opportunities for a change, as they roll out what they promise will be a more robust, commercially orientated version of the platform. Their monetization plans have long been questioned as the micro-blogging site seems to grow in leaps and bounds with no clear commercial direction. It now appears that business users will be offered a slate of services, including targeted analytical data as early as the end of this year. Commercial APIs may also be introduced, potentially segregating the commercial Twitter market from the rest of the social network.
Brand building may remain the biggest potential here and Twitter is clearly aware of how it might make money itself as participants prosper and gain. There is much to be gained from a solidification, as Twitter has been criticized as being difficult to understand and work with from a business perspective.
As Twitter’s growth has been exponential, its teething problems have been readily apparent. Customer service and online support seem to be poor or even nonexistent at times and the service’s growth rate has often had negative impact on its up-time and general reliability. The service will need to clearly delineate its terms and conditions, especially if it is charging for the right to access. It will not be able to arbitrarily wipe out accounts with no repercussions, as has been the case recently.
It would appear that the business world will cautiously welcome a commercialization of Twitter, so long as the levels of support increase with it.
While they have not released full information about the set of tools likely to emerge by the end of the year, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone has indicated that they will enable the analysis of trends and provide comprehensive demographics.
What tools would you like to see on Twitter?
Matthew Toren
Man I don’t know if twitter going big biz is a great idea.
There are many tools out now that let you track your links, and responce to your posts.
If twitter takes big biz and ads to far they will drop hard, like myspace.
It will be interesting to see what moves Twitter makes in an attempt to monetize their traffic. If they are not careful they are bound to ruffle someone’s feathers. Still, they have a large enough user base that they can afford some minor backlash.
Yea I agree, with that much traffic, they can push the line a little bit.
Twitter is a good networking tool to make connections and possible partnerships with others in your niche and to learn new things, so look at Twitter that way instead of simply the income value.
The mere presence of regular Twitter posts (under company name) sparks intrest in and of itself …therefore curiosity, therefore site traffic. It’s been a fabulous tool for us without “advertising” per se.
Twitter is growing behind expectations. I thought this will be just another social networking site like Facebook, but less popular. Now this is so huge marketing machine that I can’t even say that I know Twitter. This is too big for me.