After reading a post about Robert Scoble advertising on Twitter, I had a slight brainwave for a new Twitter application. Something that would allow users to make some money of their Twitter account.
Step 1 – Name & Domain
The idea start of as such, you register a domain like twitterads.com, twittercash.com, tweetads.com, etc. You then name the new service according to the domain name, as is with all Twitter apps.
Step 2 – How It Works
I’ll explain how the application works from a users perspective from their first visit. So, the user comes across your newly created application, because you’ve promoted it well. Here is how the story goes.
Your new visitor needs to become a user before they can start monetizing their Twitter stream. So they create an account using their Twitter username and password. We need these two crucial pieces of information to publish ads into their Twitter stream.
While the account is being created, we check the user’s Twitter account details for 3 important criteria, the amount of followers and tweets they have as well as how many people they are following. All these numbers are put into a tight algorithm to determine which advertisers will be available to the user, it will also determine how many ads they can serve per day.
In order to advertise top brands in your Twitter stream, you need to have a large number of followers and tweets. This shows that you are an influential and authentic Twitter user. If you figures are lower, you will only have access to “average” brands. The higher your figures, the higher your payout per click.
So now the user has successfully registered or logged in and we direct them to the list of advertisers available to them. They will be allowed to select the brands they would like to see served in their Twitter stream. The rest is handled by the system, in terms of how many ads will get served into this user’s Twitter stream per day (user can lower the amount). All the links will contain tracking code in order to track clicks and thereafter payouts.
Step 3: Will It Work?
A very rough idea, with some potential. I could see some people using this, it much like advertising in feeds and on blogs. However, it might be intrusive to some and you might find people stop following people because they have ads in their Twitter stream. If the ads were quality ads, it might be another story. It’s all trial and error. Good luck.
