More ways to Monetize Twitter

[rlnorthcutt]

I found a few more services in addition to Magpie (Get paid to Tweet (Magpie) - thoughts?) for monetizing Twitter.

TwitPub a Marketplace for Twitter - Buy and Sell Premium Tweets
Very interesting - change people to follow you! thats right, set up your twitter account as a "premium" channel. At $1-5 a month, the ongoing cost is pretty low, but the market is strange and new. Who knows - it might just be worth playing with!

Linkbee.com
Interesting - this system acts like TinyURL, but it gives you the option of putting a pass thru ad or top banner ad on your link. Clicks = shared revenue. Clever idea, and might be a great way to go! This could also be mimicked on your own...

Advertise On Twitter - adCause
Another "tweet ads" system, but this one allows you to direct some/all of your income to charity. The idea is that if people know your advertising is partially going to a good cause, they will be less likely to unfollow you.

twtAd - earn money while you tweet!
Another "tweet ad" system... didn't dig into it much.

More interesting creations are coming, and I think that because Twitter has such an open API we will see more.

At this time, though, I think that tweeting your own site/system/links is probably the best way to go. But, if you don't have anything yet, then supplementing your income a bit with ads is not so bad.

I am intruiged by the premium content idea, though!

[internetwarrior97]

monetizing with twitter sounds great, but man I am still not used to "tweeting" - it kind of annoys me to see people constantly on that thing.. but I guess this means more opportunities for us to monetize off that!

[internetwarrior97]

btw - thank you for the compilation! I'm very very intrigued by Linkbee.com! Have you had success with any of them?

[Craig Fenton]

Hi there:

Thanks for the info. Magpie may be the best thus far but has to work out some kinks.

The past 48 hours (I hope it is rectified now) if you put in a Twitter account with a good following it would show either a worth of Zero dollars (English Pounds) or time-out.

The second thing is the customer service only seems to be available to answer Monday through Friday typical business hours. I sent an email Friday 5PM and didn't even receive a scripted reply.

Have a great Sunday!

[rlnorthcutt]

I haven't used LinkBee yet - I just found it. As for tweeting alot, I suggest using some of the tools out there to pull from RSS feeds into twitter. Some people use that to feed in news items, but I prefer to feed my FB status and FB links.

I am also working on a simple system for scheduling tweets out over time, so they appear through the day. There is ALOT of room for improving and doing Twitter smart...

[rlnorthcutt]

FYI - I just tested out a linkbee url... will let you know how it works.

[mr.schutz]

Wow! Monetizing twitter? Thanks for the tips.

[rlnorthcutt]

Ok - I sent out two LinkBee URLs to my twitter list with some links I was suggesting (so these weren't special, it was my regular stuff).

Anyway, I got 5 total clicks between the two (not too much). The result?
$0.00225

Woohoo! I just gotta get 500 clicks to make $0.23

Now, I don't think thats a result of anyone clicking on the banner ad above the page I referred people to (otherwise I would have gotten $0.50 each)... so, not a huge money maker.

Still - if you are going to tweet and suggest regular links, its not a bad way to go. Think of it like Twitter adsense?

[Gmaster]

I'm still got no plan to monetize my twitter's account. Moreover, I found twitter is one of the easy method to generate traffic to my blog.

[joncrx]

What is the best twitter app for a blackberry curve?

[mmresources]

Yeah, I don't know that twitter is a good platform for adsense type of advertising, I just don't see it. It does seem to have good merit for driving traffic, however.

[rlnorthcutt]

I agree - twitter is fantastic for generating blog/site traffic... especially when coupled with RSS feeds of your blog posts and taking time to build good followers.

FYI - HootSuite also provides a way to show adsense on the framed links you tweet about. They keep half and give you the other half. Might be worth it for links going away from your site.

Also, their tools are pretty nice - scheduled tweets, rss tweet feeds, and the ability to manage multiple twitter accounts from a single location.

[LivingCovers]

Great tips here, I just got thru with my twitter background some minutes ago. What do you guys think about it?

Olatunde Oladele (LivingCovers) on Twitter

Be kind as to follow and will follow too.

[thedataexpert]

some good tips here, I will give a few a try and post how it goes

[yoshiko]

Thanks for the list. I am just started getting familiar with twitter and chance upon this. Great source of reference. My key purpose would be driving more targeted traffic to my blogs.

[dirtysteve]

Has anyone used the twitter hummingbird software. I'm trying to find some good reviews with it. Would love to get some here .

[Kelly Verge]

IMO, those methods are kind of like Adsense or even Associated Content. Your piece of the pie is so small it's almost not worth the effort. They'd be fine for someone who's using Twitter strictly for social reasons and who could make a few extra bucks for something they're already doing, but the return is too small compared to the effort it would take to drive the traffic if you're trying to make this a business.

I currently do Twitter in two distinctly different manners. On one hand, I have a profile with 17K+ followers. Here I do a regular update/sales message mix - light on sales messages. Even with 17K followers, there's no way one of the above monetization methods could compare with what I'm already doing.

My second method (and the one detailed in the WSO in my signature) involves niche-specific profiles. My largest niche profile has a little over 3K followers. Even my 17K followers can't touch what I'm doing with a list of niche-targeted followers. As in every other marketing method, the closer your message matches your customer, the more you can make.

Sometimes (usually?) the easy road just limits your potential.