Make Money Online! Twitter, Heres How:
Dear Twitter,
RE: Making Money to Support your £1Billion Valuation
I have money. Not a lot of it. And I don’t want to give it all away. But I do have some. I would like to reach out from my pocket and give you a few quid if it makes a difference. However, unlike you, I don’t want to give anything away free, so please find below some things I want to pay you for.
OK, I want to pay for the use of my a/c. It has made huge difference to the way I work and mix with my community. And because of twitter, I feel valued amongst my peers. So I would like to pay you a fee of £5 a month for the use of my a/c. Its not a lot, but like I said I have money, but not a lot of it. If you don’t want to charge me, I still want to give it to you to show my appreciation for a great service. Please let me know where I can send you the £60 a year.
I am a marketer. I love data. I am also very nosy. So I will pay you a further £2 a month to find out:
- A time line of my followers and when the started following me.
- Who left my followers count (I used Qwitter but it doesn’t work properly anymore. Any way I want the data in a dashboard please.)
- I would like to know who blocks me.
I am willing to pay you an extra £10 a month to show me some real stats. Something like google analytics. Some of the stuff I would love to track:
- Number of clicks on tweet links I send out.
- Retweet numbers
- Who retweeted and who clicked on my links. (yeah I KNOW you are tracking clicks – just share that data with me, please)
- People who clicked on my profile link.
- Incoming links to my profile from other sites.
- Number of visitors coming through my profile from other sites and search engines.
- What keywords people used to find my links.
- I want it all in ONE place.
So as a simple user, I am willing to part with £17 a month for the above. I know you have an analytics service coming out for businesses, but I am not that rich. And I know there are third party tools that can give me a lot of this data. But they aren’t very reliable, and I don’t want to pay them, I want to pay YOU. So you can improve the service better. So I can show you my appreciation.
Regards
Rishi Lakhani
p.s I asked a few people whether they would like the service…
p.p.s Of the millions of users you have, even at a ceiling of £10 a month, and say 50,000 users buy the service, then you get £500,000 a month = £6M a year. Not a billion quid, but better than you are getting now right? Plus I am a cheapskate, I wouldnt pay more, although the hundreds of small / medium sized businesses may pay much more.
p.p.p.s Can I get a cut of that action?
Post category: Analytics, Making Money Online, Twitter Tweet
Rishi Lakhani is a Search Strategist who works with a range of Big Brands on SEO and Online Marketing. He Guest Blogs for Blogstorm and other UK Marketing Blogs and takes active interest in the UK and International Search Community. You can find Rishi on Twitter, or at his blog Explicitly.me.
Comments
Read the 12 comments below, or add your own!
I saw this and thought “oh no, not another post about how to make money using twitter”. Pleasantly surprised though and I guess I should have known better and read the tweet properly.
I agree 100% with this sentiment. I know twitter have hinted at a business version of the service and im guessing that it will contain many of the items on the wishlist above, but nothing to do about that for now but wait and see.
I would also see this as a way to differentiate between personal accounts and “professional”(?) accounts opening the door to different revenue streams as a consequence on a B2B level. Could be interesting as it may also stop the spam or at least decrease it a little.
Still, the pricing will always be an issue but if they ear marked it properly it could work out well for everyone. (I always thought that if every user paid 1 quid a year it would make for a real tidy earner anyway, and yes, a slice of that action would be nice indeed)
P.S. Nice to see you back on twitter Rishi after your little “vacation”.
As an analytics advocate – I wholeheartedly love this idea! Any business or professional could justify that kind of minimal spend. Measurable ROI etc. etc.
The only part I’d disagree with is the entry payment to use Twitter. The minute you introduce costs you reduce the number of people who will access the service. At the moment I love the fact that ALL kinds of people are on Twitter; rather than just those who are willing to get their wallets out. The wider the audience, the more marketers will be attracted to Twitter.
I’d probably pay around £10-15 per month for GA-style stats though. The more powerful they are, or more access I get to my stats, the more I’d pay. Maybe tiered personal/corporate analytics packages?
I may also pay for a more reliable API with access to older tweets… but hey we can’t have everything
I would pay for better background control, that’s a must for corporate accounts.
@joanna I wasn’t suggesting the user subscription as standard, I WANT to pay the that as a good will
Brilliant post! Indeed me too at the beginning thought that is just a same post on how to make on Twitter like many other posts. I liked he way you were ironic to Twitter and the way that treets personal data.
The reliability of third party apps made is pretty poor unfortunately and Twitter offering decent analytics would indeed be a good thing. Not so much for the casual user, so charging to use Twitter should be a no no, but if you want all the demographics under the sun I think users would pay for them if they were reasonably priced and of a suitable standard.
It will be interesting to see if anyone from Twitter can shed some light on their plans (if any) on this!
I would pay 5 quid per month alone for the possibility to get a quick reply from customer service if I have a problem. My account has been locked 4 days ago with no explanation apart from “too many login attempts” (NOT me) and then advice to ‘chillax’ (sic), which leaves me completely stranded. Nobody knows what to do and after telling customer service what my problem is, I probably have to wait for another 6 months till something might be done. Shocking. As Twitter is free, you don’t have any rights and are left to the mercy of some admin guy who might read your complaint before Xmas.
I don’t want to ‘chillax’, I want proper service and I am prepared to pay for it.
Hey Rishil,
Very much agree with this – considering the number of other professional subscriptions a typical marketer (or other Pro), SME & Enterprise has it makes sense. Also if that Yearly fee could take of the no-fo from the profile link that’d sweeten the deal.
I also think analytics tracking of who’s viewing your profile when you follow them would be useful.
@Patrick – Agreed, the customization options for Corporate accounts are rubbish – and the “Corporate” system they’re bringing out I’m doubting will be any good for 95% of companies (Coke & Pepsi maybe – but anyone with a budget of less than $1m a year? Not likely…)
If they could push 4 accounts –
Standard (free)
Pro (Rishil’s idea @£17)
SME (slightly more @ around £25 or so)
Corporate/Enterprise (can cover multiple accounts but @ around £150 per 5)
Nice post and thanks for sharing the secrets of making money online.
I usually read the comments first before the blog post (that’s just me) I usually find valuable info from them. You have some great reactions from your readers here which made me read your post. The title was too familiar and I was kind a used to reading stuffs like that. Good post!
Hi Rishi,
This is the first time I have read your blog and it is really mind blowing. You have chosen a different way of approach to share the secret of money making.
All of these methods are good methods to make money online if you know what youre doing, if you have money to invest, if you have time to spare and to wait for income some time down the road, if you have a list.
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October 4, 2009 at 6:44pm