Is Making Money With Twitter a Long Term Possibility?

Popularly described as the “SMS of the Internet,” Twitter is among the “Top 10” most visited sites in the world, according to Alexa web traffic analysis.

Current estimates suggest that Twitter has roughly 190 million users and these users create around 65 million tweets per day.

Like Facebook, Twitter is also a social networking or a micro-blogging platform where users post ‘tweets’ limited to 140 characters per tweet.

Since its launch in July 2006 within the public domain, Twitter quickly became one of the preferred social platforms to stay connected personally and professionally as well.

For those not using Twitter as a money making source, it is a platform to stay connected with friends, catch up on news or ‘follow’ their favorite film stars.

Internet marketers believe that Twitter is a good resource for business promotion and in the process, yet another stream of revenue. Whether Twitter can help to earn direct or indirect income is the purpose of today’s discussion.

A Brief Twitter History

The foundation of Twitter was the result of a brain storming session by employees at the ODEO – a podcasting company. The initial idea was to develop a prototype through which internal members of the company could communicate and remain abreast of current developments within a company through the short messaging system.

The first Twitter prototype installed for ODEO was on July 15, 2006. Within 3 months, Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and others acquired ODEO and Twitter from its investors and shareholders; Twitter was separated and established as a singular company in April 2007.

Twitter Demographics

Industry experts like the comScore or the Sysomos have found out important demographical markings for Twitter. If you are in the Internet marketing business, keep note of these facts and figures because it will influence your marketing strategy.

1. Only 11% of Twitter users are between  12-17 years of age (comScore)
2. Older adults use Twitter more than anyone else (comScore)
3. Only 47% men use Twitter as compares to 53% women, without considering which country they belong to (Sysomos)
4. Large percentage of Twitter users are based in New York, USA (Sysomos)
5. On an average, 63% Twitter users are less than 35 years old; 16% are African American, 11% are Hispanic and 60% are Caucasian (Quancast)
6. An average of $60,000 is the total household income of 58% Twitter users.

In terms of Twitter content, the Peer Analytics Company found the following after examining 2000 tweets in August 2009.

1. 40% of social grooming tweets (also described as “pointless babble”)
2. 38% of conversational tweets
3. 9% of “pass along” tweets
4. 6% of self promotion tweets
5. 4% of spam tweets
6. 4% of news tweets

Moreover, only half or even less of tweets are posted through the twitter.com website because users mostly use third party applications like Salesforce.com, twitterfeed.com, HootSuite.com and TweetDeck.com to post tweets, says a 500 million Twitter analysis by Sysomos.

There is also a Twitter service through which URLs can be shortened and then promoted. However, this is available only to that content published in Twitter.

Now that we have a broad idea of twitter functions and its use with the global audience, let’s look at its money making potential.

Note this:

THE BEST WAY TO EARN MONEY FROM TWITTER IS THROUGH ADVERTISEMENT.

You can use Direct Advertisement as a means to promote advertiser’s products on Twitter.

Since tweets can only be 140 characters long, there is no space for long reviews or article content publishing. You have just 140 characters which is barely a long sentence, and don’t forget you have to fit in the URL (the site address where you want the twitter visitor to be directed) as well.

Be-A-Magpie.com, Twittad.com, HootSuite.com and RevTwt.com are some websites where advertisers gather to find Internet marketers with big Twitter followers so they can help them market or promote their business.

How does it typically work? You are the Internet marketer and you create an account in, let’s say, HootSuite.com.

There you collaborate with advertisers looking for promotion. Try to find a product you will be interested in promoting. There are no shortages of options. Advertisers from multiple arenas go there to search for promoters.

Since this is paid advertising, you have to negotiate a budget and therefore, you have to keep in mind your competition.

For instance, there is another Internet marketer who is offering 150 tweets for $50 which includes promotion content creation too and you are offering 150 tweets for $60 which also includes promotion content development but obviously, the advertiser is going to choose the first Internet marketer.

Therefore, you have to create a good package for twitter advertisers. Suppose for the same $60, you give an advertiser 180 tweets + tweet writing package + tracking option + updating tweets regularly – this is a package that will motivate any advertiser to give a long thought to your services.

Remember that making money with Twitter through direct advertising is very difficult. There are marketplaces where advertisers are hiring twitter product promoters for less than $5 and they are giving advertisers tweeting service for up to a year for that measly $5.

Yes, tweeting is not a hard task but come on; a five dollar package for 365 days is not worth the work!!!

Now similar to this option is another alternative to earn money from Twitter – Affiliate Marketing.

For affiliate marketers, this is a good platform to promote your affiliate products. Suppose you are selling fairness cream product, what you do is tweet about it from your own account or, in this case, hiring other Internet promoters to do the same works as well.

You could tweet – “Best Fairness Beauty Product with Aloe Vera Extract – URL”. You could use variations of the same. There are two main aspects here – don’t forget to keep the content interesting and don’t forget to paste your affiliate link in the URL; otherwise, you won’t get any credit for sales made.

Persistent Effort

With Twitter Internet marketing promotions, you have to be constantly on the edge because this is not something you can do once in a while.

If you wish to seriously make any money from Twitter, continue to give it 100 percent. You have to practically be online 24×7 on Twitter.