How Twitter Could Monetize

Published
by
Matt
on Jan 5, 2009
in social media and twitter
. Tags: , .

Twitter, at this moment, is not very different from a charity or non-profit. They’re providing a (great) service for no cost, and are not generating any revenue. Seeing as the dot-com bubble has already burst, this obviously won’t be able to continue forever. Here’s some ideas I had, in no particular order, on ways that Twitter can generate some money.

1) Tweet Blasts
The most obvious way for Twitter to make some money is to offer a bulk tweet delivered to it’s user base. The way I would set this up is to offer a tweet to everyone ($$$), to a smaller random number of users ($$), and an even smaller random number of users ($). The best uses for this type of advertising would be the traditional products with mass-market appeal like movies, fast-food, or cars.

I know this is very “old marketing”, spray-and-pray type of stuff, but hey, if it pays the bills and keeps Twitter free without overdoing it, I’m all for it.

2) Targeted Tweet Blasts
This one is a little more focused, makes a little more sense, and would take a little more time than just general or random Tweet Blasts. The one play here would be to leverage people’s Bio information to target them based on things like location or interests. Terms like “Charleston, SC” or “avid gamer” could be used. This would make sense if you were promoting a local restaurant or a media (game, music, movie) release.

The other angle you could take, and this might be tough, is to pull a tweet cloud for each user. This way you can see that someone spends all their time talking about “Apple” or “Philadelphia Phillies” or “Snowboarding” even if it’s not in their Bio information.

3) Headliners
If you checked the web version of Twitter today, you would see a warning for a phishing scam above your timeline. This is, again, not much better than a billboard, but would still be a high profile place to put a one-line ad. One problem here is that it would only reach web users.

4) Tweet Cloud Contextual Ad Blocks
Now here’s a sweet, sweet internet advertising mashup. The first thing that would need to happen here is that Twitter would have to institute ad blocks on individual profiles. My best guess would be to put them on the right side of the timeline, as people usually do their custom background graphic on the left. Next they would have to figure out which users Tweet cloud to pull the data from. Is it the user of the profile that you’re visting? Or is it your data? And what happens if you’re not a Twitter user or have limited data?

5) Charge A Membership Fee
I’d rather it not come to this. But I’d pay it. Twitter is totally worth it.

Did I miss anything? Am I way off base? Let me know!

Note: I don’t necessarily endorse any/all of these ideas, it was just a brainstorm.

  • @bcultral - Robin
    Create a new Advertising formula. Go after the industry that can afford it. Be stringent and user friendly....
  • Matt, you have some new and unique ideas that haven't been discussed before. One variation that I would add to your headliners would be to sell a branded site similar to election.twitter.com for a big brand or event. For example, how much traction would you the NFL get out of Superbowl.twitter.com?
  • What a great idea. I hadn't even thought of that. something like Superbowl.twitter.com would make a great space to brand but to also provide a lot of good functionality.
  • HI Matt,

    Some good food for thought here. I really like the idea of creating tweet clouds. I may have to pull some of my tweets into Wordle and see what pops up.

    The bigger question, of course, is how all of us will respond to advertising in the Twitterstream. While a little bit might not be annoying (and can be ignored), a constant bombardment of ads would be something else. Like you, I'm not sure a membership fee is the way to go, but I might end up believing that was a better solution that lots of ads. Unless they're truly targeted to my interests--but how often does advertising really work that well?
  • I would also like see what my entire tag cloud look like. Would be fun to see what I talk about the most.

    I agree that there would be some resistance to ads on Twitter. I think one option may be to offer an ad supported and subscription version that removes the ads. That way, those of use who really enjoy Twitter as it is and see the value in it, would be able to pay a little to keep it that way.
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