I found this article. Some of the things in here may not be relevant for us, but it still interesting to read I think. Aside from that our creative brains might find some new Twitter ideas in this!
People want to see $$$. People want to make money on Twitter for it to make sense. I’m not one of those people but I understand that mindset very well. After contributing to the Web for for more than a decade as media activist, blogger and social media “user generated content” contributor I’m wary by now of companies earning money on my back without anything for me in it.
So no matter whether you’re a die hard business person or the altruistic Web enthusiast, you surely will be delighted to learn about 10 Ways to make money on Twitter.
Of course making money always alienates some people, especially those who haven’t made money yet in their life time but also there are legitimate concerns. So it’s also important to be able to maintain integrity while making money on Twitter.
1. Tweeting professionally
Become a professional Twitter contributor for a company. Plenty of companies out there hurry to join the social media realm. Most of them are not prepared. They need people who are. Those who know the inner workings of blogging, social media and search are always welcome. It’s the same with Twitter. Soon enough the job boards will be flooded with “Seeking Twitter Pros”.
2. Selling
Sell stuff on Twitter, special offers for Twitter followers are common by now. Even Dell does it. Dell, once only ridiculed for it’s legendarily bad customer service has by now managed to be one of the most innovative companies in social media. They sure now how to answer the “social media phone”.
3. Micro Fundraising
Why not combine the two hugely successful “micro” ways of doing things, microblogging and microfunding? How does it work? As a Twestival for instance. Or like this.
4. Promoting Music
This new service called Tra.kz combines a short URL service with a market place and a music community. If you ask me this sounds much better than the music industry or the iTunes monopoly on selling music online.
5. Advertising
I’ve noticed two Twitter ads services you can join which look professional enough not to appear spammy: Magpie and the Branch. I haven’t tried them yet so I’d like to hear from those who have joined these whether they earned actual money without scaring off their followers. Magpie ads start with an “#magpie” but look like regular tweets which might be misleading for your followers. Another Twitter ad solution is Twitadd. This service places banner ads on your Twitter page .
6. Affiliate Marketing
As short URL services also disguise affiliate links you can even sneak in those without most people noticing. While I do not condone that I certainly don’t think it’s a bad thing to get commission from services you already support. I myself support some and have used affiliate links in my tweets already, warning my followers that “I’m biased” or using an actual “[Aff]” warning.
7. Looking around
Look for business opportunities on Twitter. I got this job on Twitter, yes, I replied to a tweet and then started blogging a SEOptimise! I didn’t even try hard or look after it for that matter. Imagine then looking to find a freelance job on purpose. I see tweets daily saying things like “looking for x programmmer”.
8. Offering Twitter Apps
Many companies offer Twitter apps for free. The Twitter API has resulted in a plethora of useful and fun applications but recently more and more professional applications appear on the Web. Those offer premium versions or could do in the future. Selling anything from Twitter analytics to Twitter CMSs like HootSuite (formerly known as BrightKit) makes sense for business. Thus people would also pay for it.
9. Reviewing on Twitter
I assume that some people already practice what you could call “pay per tweet”. You can’t really review a product on Twitter like on a blog but you can mention it. I haven’t seen this actually happen yet. Like with paid reviews and bought votes elsewhere this is a difficult topic. As far as I know Twitter does not allow that. While I can understand that, it does not make sense from the user perspective that you are not allowed to advertise on your own content. Similar to placing affiliate links in tweets an ethical way of placing paid links in tweets could look like this “[Ad] New cool app: http://newcoolapp.com”
10. Twitter Consulting
While working on this Twitter optimization series I found out that despite Twitter being so simple and limited, there’s a myriad of ways to use it for all kinds of purposes. It’s just that you won’t know them unless you try or somebody tells you. I assume that many companies will need Twitter consultants, speciaists who teach them how to use Twitter in their particular niche, industry and situation.
