One way to monetise Twitter seems to be using feeds/information outside of the site itself – good news for sites and businesses, if not for Twitter directly.
Probably the best use so far is by Mashable, revealed today. In conjunction with viral scientist, Mashable contributor and Twitter uber-analyst Dan Zarrella, the site now has a widget displaying ‘Twitter Brand Sponsors’.
Quoting from Mashable:
‘Twitter Brand Sponsors is a small step towards our sociable ads goal. Here’s how it works: a limited number of brands (and one charity!) looking to engage with the social media community can have their latest Tweets syndicated into the Mashable sidebar, and interested visitors can choose to connect with those brands on Twitter.’
The first sponsors are Jetblue and Mailchimp, indicating that there’s interest at launch – it will be interesting to see how many companies are engaged with a suitable Twitter presence to benefit.
And it also removes the questions around the previous example of Glam’s Twitter feed widget, which displayed moderated #Oscar tweets in a widget with advertising:
Is it right to profit from user-generated content created on another site, and without the awareness of those creating the content?
Would advertisers, even those related to the target audience/subject get enough value from display advertising around Twitter content.
Instead, the Mashable approach allows people to see interaction from businesses (and charities), and decide whether or not to engage.
I have to admit, I’m wondering whether they’ll white-label the Twitter widget, as I’d be keen to run something similar!
This is a great step forward
for twitter.
The buzz is really building, it’s
just a matter of time before
everyone’s using twitter and the
big Brands realize they should
be there.
It’ll will be interesting to see how
different brands utilize twitter in
their business.
“Is it right to profit from user-generated content created on another site, and without the awareness of those creating the content?”
It is already being done with all the rss feeds being fed into the many social sites and from those same social sites. That is why this is fertile ground for the right ad mix. Creates more incentive to become attractively sticky 😉
Great move. As Skittles.com has shown, Twitter is a great advertising tool to build brand awareness and potentially traffic to a website.
Being able to actually monetize it for advertising is a brilliant move on mashable’s part, and I bet many more will follow your lead.
this is some innovative thinking.
exposure to the conversation through another stream is intriguing.
some questions: how is the rate card structured? are charities given a price break? will this become just be more sidebar noise or will readers be inclined to engage?
If Mashable’s doing it, I’m following! That site rocks, love the tweets n info.
I’ve devised a very simple strategy for Twitter to monetize its services.
http://www.angelobell.com/2009/03/monetizing-twitter/
If Mashable’s doing it, I’m following! That site rocks, love super i like that