Monetize Tweets - Make Money with Twitter
You have Twitter, now what?
Okay, you have a Twitter account and have lots of followers and now you want to monetize your account to start earning some money from all those eyes. If you don’t have lots of followers, and by “lots” I mean at least 1900, then you might want to take a look at some of the methods discussed here and here to get more followers.
Follow Me!
If you’re just starting out on Twitter, you want to find followers that are in, or related to your niche. You can go to Twitter and search for you keywords and find people that are discussing your niche or your keyword and follow them. There’s a good chance that they will follow you back and if they do make sure you are just giving them quality Tweets.
You can have multiple accounts so it’s a good idea to keep your niche topics separate because people interested in “caring for reptiles” may not be interested in Tweets about “home schooling” and they really will be of no benefit to you other than getting your following numbers higher.
You want to be careful on how many people you follow in a day too. Never follow more than 100 per day because your account might get flagged for excessive following. You can’t follow more than 2000 followers until you have at least 1900 people following you. So, once a week you’ll want to go back to your account and purge those that are not following you back. Never purge more than 100 at a time or your account might get flagged for excessive un-following.
Once your account has reached the 1900 followers level, you’ll probably notice that it will continue to grow at a greater rate than ever before. That’s good because having a large base of followers is what you want if you’re going to earn money from them. Think of your niche followers as an email list but don’t send them an automated direct message when they follow you. You would do better at fostering a relationship if you @reply to every direct message you receive. But even then is not the time to try and sell anything. We’re getting to that.
But first, you can follow me on Twitter.
Monetizing Tweets
There are essentially 3 ways to monetize your Twitter account and each has its own benefits and drawbacks:
- You can send traffic to one of your sites, which you can then monetize directly (via product purchases, affiliate offers, adsense, etc.) You do this by placing a shortened URL link inside your Tweets directing traffic to your site where they can then see your offer. Also you can have the link inside your profile bio.
- You can send traffic directly to an affiliate link, also through a shortened URL link and make sure your Tweets have a benefit or a call to action such as, 90% off only for the next 10 customers, or Sale ends at midnight US Central time.
- You can earn money with your Tweets through sponsorships and ad networks. It’s essential that you have a large following for this method because the sponsors and ad networks will pay you directly for allowing them to place ads inside your Tweets.
Make money with Twitter
- SponsoredTweets - Conversation starter
Sponsored tweets description - Twittad Let Your Ad Meet Tweets
They will match up your profile with prospective advertisers and then place an advertisement in your profile background.
Comments
Rope, I don't see any other social network coming close to providing what Twitter provides. Build your following with by adding value with tweets. I only add an affiliate link at a ratio of 10 to 1 with the majority of my tweets going to promoting my hubs. I seriously doubt that the 13th ranked website in the world is going to die anytime soon. It will go through some changes there is no possible way it can sustain without bringing in revenue so I can see at some point in the future more advertising through their live timeline or by charging us to post affiliate links. But for now, I'll keep doing what I do and tweet away.
Rumor has it that Kim K - The one that dates Reggie Bush, get's paid $10K per tweet. I wonder how long it will be until the FTC cracks down on paid tweeting. Perhaps it already has, like it's done with paid posts.
Thanks for the comment Paul and yes it is a possibility that tweeters may have to make disclosures on whether they are being paid to tweet or not, though most ad networks require a hashtag or some type of sponsorship disclaimer within the sponsored tweet.
I'd be interested if there are any statistics on the Geo-trending that twitter provides. I'm sure somewhere there is an aggregate of all tweets on all public time lines that can determine the impact tweets have on consumer spending.
Thank you for that much information and will look into it. May Iask question not related to this? Talking about being flagged, I get get a numner of warnings about having too many tags but they all relevant which is one thing and the other is Yield Built suggest them. I thought that they would know what they are doing. WHat am I going to do? I don't want to loose out one way and get flagged on the other.
It strikes me that it sounds like tweet stalking - you can't follow too many people until so many follow you and all that....yikes. Good information though and I twit or tweet or was that I am a twit? But I twit and tweet all my things so maybe will have to look into twitting and tweeting separately on different subjects. I think that's what you do on Halloween too - twit or tweet. (I apologize - it's the caffeine). Very valid points though and thank you for the info. the blonde twit!
lol yea they have the limits in place so people can't just find the person with the largest following and then mass follow their entire list with the hopes that most will just follow back. I think its a popularity game. And like Paul hinted at above, the larger your following the more advertisers will be willing to pay you for your tweets.
Thanks Richard for all your advice. I shall follow you in Twitter now
Wonderful hub. Another that has been bookmarked. Maybe you would like to follow me on twitter? Likewise, I shall do the same!
www.twitter.com/shazwellyn
Nice to read another of your great hubs, my friend! x
I didn't know ad networks were placing ads within their network.
They are Don but they place a disclaimer before the link stating that it is a sponsored or paid for link.
I joined Twitter a couple of weeks ago, and am learning the ropes. Your Hub provides some much needed info. Thanks!
Excellent article! This is perhaps the single most important venue for marketing and yet many or most of us are ignorant on the subject.
Paul E. makes a great point - the FTC should be watching for the paid tweets. Disclosure on the Internet is critical. All too often we believe what is in print. The transparency of promoting something that we are paid to promote is different from just stating you enjoy something.
Kim K is supposedly one of the wealthiest women in the world - the marketing power is huge and channeling it with transparency is key for all us to make money here on the Internet.
Having a focused Twitter account, I feel is key to marketing. A general account works for celebrities such as Kim K but for the rest of us we need a niche to attract and retain traffic and readers.
Thanks for all the details. I try Twitter for a few days at a time and keep losing interest. Sounds like you've found ways to make it work for you.
Hmmm....I actually never thought of it that way. Nice! I will check into that now. By the way, whats your twitter account? Here's mine: @JohnnyF89
I follow many film companies too.
The Rope 2 years ago
Just a question because I have had some response from my tweets but what are you hearing about the "death of twitter". That it's dying on the vine seems to be quite the buzz right now and I'm interested to hear from someone who is using it extensively.