January 13, 2012

Competition for Twitter followers is heating up, with advertisers paying between $1 and $4 per new follower—and some car manufacturers forking over as much as $10, according to the Financial Times.

That's for the microblogging site's "promoted accounts" feature. So-called "Promoted Tweets," which make messages more likely to be seen by more users, are charged based on the number of retweets. (Here's an explanation of using Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets.)

In total, companies poured some $150 million into Twitter advertising in an attempt to reach the microblogging site's 100 million users. (Compare that to the nearly $4 billion they spent on Facebook trying to win the eyeballs of the social networks's 800 million users.)

Then again, Twitter is "still trying to figure out" its advertising products, Mark Read, CEO of advertising group WPP Digital, told the FT.

Or as Adam Bain, Twitter's head of revenue, put it: “Twitter the product is five years old, [but] Twitter the business is just slightly over a year old. We’ve done a lot in a short amount of time...Our motto has been to do it right, rather than do it right away.”

The microblogging site rolled out Promoted Tweets in April 2010. Its ad program, however, is still in beta, and requires good old-fashioned networking to get an invitation. This may not be anything you're seeking immediately, since you'll also need to be able to meet the $15,000 per-month minimum spend. (Can't think about even a fraction of that spend? Consider hiring a social media consultant to work on your Twitter handle, a relative bargain at some $300 per hour.)

Twitter's insistence on rolling out ads v-e-r-y slowly—only a small percentage of users see them, and only if the ads are directly relevant—has helped make its engagement rates among the highest of the online formats. Low single-digit percentages of people seeing a sponsored Tweet interact with it, compared to a fraction of one percent for Facebook and other online standard display ads.

“The engagement rate on ads is probably the highest I’ve ever seen on any digital advertising that I’ve run in the last 10 years,” Simon Mansell, CEO at social marketing firm TBG Digital told the FT.

Twitter revamped its website in December in an effort to help companies better showcase their brands.

Among the features: A new profile page, where companies can highlight something specific, such as videos or photos. Previously the profile pages only displayed a company's most recent Tweets.

If bootstrapping makes advertising on Twitter—or even hiring a social media consultant—not in your realm of possibility, regular old Tweeting has plenty of value.

Small businesses typically get more than half of their customers through word-of-mouth, and Twitter's culture encourages people to spread the word, Greg Sterling, an analyst who studies the Internet's influence on local businesses, told The New York Times.

Photo credit: iStock

Related Topics

• The World
• Technology
• Marketing

Related keywords

Courtney Rubin, Article, small-business news, social media, online marketing, advertising, TBG Digital, WPP Digital, Twitter, Mark Read, Adam Bain, Simon Mansell, Greg Sterling

Join the conversation ( 5 )

• Drewry News Network 3 months ago

  

  as someone in California would say…There's a lot of "scrilla" in getting:[Twitter $ gUaP $] When it comes to "effectively building your twitter following" and increasing revenue by way of [networking via twitter] :-)http://www.drewrynewsnetwork.com/f25/dipset-capo-jim-jones-%93goes-hard%94-test-driving-audi-a7-new-york-city-streets-2617.html

• Ben Winegarden 4 months ago

  

  I wonder how Gingrich's twitter follower investment will help him in the republican elections. That's quite an expensive way to fake a following to get more voters after his fannie Mae fraud. Ben Winegarden

• Drewry News Network 4 months ago

  

  http://www.DrewryNewsNetwork.comEither way you look at it, there is still a lot of $ gUaP $ to be made on Twitter by way of tweets and building Twitter followers simultaneously.

• liquidmocean 4 months ago

  

  $300 an hour for a 'Twitter Expert' what is a twitter expert? There are some very cool people I've helped with getting started and no way would I envisage charging someone that kind of coin. Too many people think they know everything about the platform because they've had an account for a few years with a few thousand followers. Gotta do the time in the trenches to get fully conversant with the network. Scalping the unwary is not a way to win hearts and minds....just a thought.

  • Sanford's Kitchen 4 months ago

    

    I feel Twitter is a way to have a conversation with customers and help build a brand loyalty. Wouldn't paying for followers defeat that intended purpose? @sanfordskitchen ;) follow us and let me know haha.