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Twitter Talks up a Corporate-Account Plan

posted by Nick Cifuentes @ Saturday, February 21, 2009 - 2:18 PM
Twitter stirred the emotional 'tweeting' world last week when a rumor was unveiled that it could soon charge companies to 'interact' on Twitter.

Based on comments made by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, the possible idea (rumor) is to charge companies for accounts with special privileges.

In a New York Magazine article last week, Stone and Williams said that charging companies for brand verification is something they are seriously looking into. They said that a paid corporate account could have features like a prompt when a new user joins a company's feed.

This makes a lot of sense on many levels, one being to keep the Twitter-sphere clean of fake & spam-like profiles. There has been a slew of fake profiles that have been created on Twitter, one most recently was an account for the Dalai Lama that was removed.

If this were to go into effect in the following months, it is not anything that wasn't expected.

Companies have been using Twitter successfully since its creation - essentially to connect with their customers on a more personal level.

Zappos and Comcast are two of the most prominent company profiles on Twitter who have engaged their audience effectively. Both brands scan Twitter (via Twitter Search & other social media monitoring platforms) to see who is 'tweeting' about them daily. The companies then connect with those users, whether it is positive or negative feedback, and send messages, communicating directly with the individual users on a personal level.

Personally, I have connected with Comcast's Twitter account rep, Frank Eliason, who tweets from the account ComcastCares. He was able to handle my personal complaint with Comcast quickly. He had someone call me within a day to 'listen' to my issue I was having with their service and they quickly offered me compensation for my inconvenience.

Do you see the power here?

Marketing on Twitter however is a much more fruitful idea from a revenue perspective. Last year, Dell reported that it had made over $1 million in revenue thanks to Twitter. Dell offers a number of exclusive deals through Twitter to users who follow their accounts. There is clearly a revenue-generating opportunity here, question is though, does Twitter somehow incorporate a business model to try and make money off those sales directly?

Maybe...

If Twitter were to honestly try and sew themselves into the direct revenue stream that companies could generate through the Twitter platform, it would be questioned on two specific levels.

First, how complicated will a system like that be, impacting IT and other marketing channels of an organization. And secondly, the cost - at what level or percentage would Twitter try and 'fit' themselves into this model. Both are clear questions that have to be answered directly before any idea like this can possibly be implemented.

Despite the rumors, Twitter for now is and will remain free to use by everyone - individuals, companies, celebrities, etc.

And for those who are unaware of how Twitter generates revenue currently - they don't!
  • Twitter has raised about $20m in venture capital and is backed by Union Square Ventures, Digital Garage, Spark Capital, and Bezos Expeditions (led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos).
  • It is reported to have turned down a $500m acquisition offer from Facebook.
  • A new round of venture capital funding is said to value Twitter at $250m.
On a recent Twitter company blog post, founder Biz Stone commented on some of the speculation of charging companies to use the service:

However, it’s important to note that whatever we come up with, Twitter will remain free to use by everyone—individuals, companies, celebrities, etc. What we’re thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services. We are still very early in the idea stage and we don’t have anything to share just yet despite a recent surge in speculation. When we do, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Feel free to follow Overdrive Interactive on Twitter here: @ovrdrv

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