One of the most popular social networking sites today, topped only by Facebook, is the micro-blogging site Twitter. Created only at 2006, the site is now processing over 65 million tweets a day or 2 billion tweets per month. Moreover, it signs up more than 300,000 people everyday for new Twitter accounts. How does Twitter make money?
Like the other social networking sites, business on Twitter depends on numbers. With substantial numbers, marketers are continually devising ways and means of monetizing them.
Tweets
In Twitter, you send out your micro messages (only 140 characters per tweet) and if they are interesting and attention-getting, you will have followers. Soon, the number of followers would grow, especially if your messages becomes viral (re-tweeted to the friends of your followers who in turn send them out to their own followers and so on.)
In time, a message or a set of messages or the sender will take the whole world by storm. An innocent comment (tweet) by a celebrity can sometimes be read by the whole world in a matter of minutes.
Followers
Twitter depends on having followers. Your first mission, therefore, is to build your list of followers to your Twitter site. Followers facilitates in your getting exposure.
In making your post (tweets), be sure to provide them with enough substance and meaning. Of course, it should also reflect your persona as well, which would make it unique and colored with your own personality.
Going viral
Somewhere along the way, your tweets catches somebody’s fancy and might re-tweet them to his friends as well. (Of course, his followers would also be aware of the tweets). This is the start of having your tweets going viral.
Your followers are naturally interested in what you are saying and if they find it interesting, they will come back for more. Twitter traffic will increase if you are sincere and honest in your posts.
Numbers
Followers are the main point in your tweets as far as marketing is concerned. The numbers are the main engine to run your money-making within Twitter.
Your job is to continue participating and observing your followers. If you stop posting your tweets, your followers would think your interest has waned and they will also stop tweeting at your site.
Links
In one recent study, 70% of all re-tweets now contain a link. These links are the marketing connections that make money for these tweets.
For one, these links connects to certain sites that offers merchandise or services. With re-tweeting, the mechanism of selling and monetizing the tweets and re-tweets of Twitter users are now part of world-wide commerce.
Other Twitter marketing ideas
Aside from these commercial links, marketers themselves have software and automated message-sending programs that sends out commercial tweets to the Twitter accounts of some popular personalities who has command of millions or more followers.
Obviously, these marketing thrusts have been successful because they have been proliferating within Twitter from several competing marketing companies.
How does a Twitter account make money? In many ways or as many as the creative minds of marketers can come up with. Meantime, tweeting has become so prevalent now that other media can now send tweets from anywhere they are.