Comments on: Could You Twitter For a Living?

By: Brandon J. Mendelson

Brandon J. Mendelson — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:40:39 +0000

How well do you know how to utilize sponsorship?

I have yet to see it happen, but I am convinced if someone had enough followers (at least 10k) and from the start they said they promote company X but will offer independent (re: critical) reviews as well as promotional items, I think it can be a successful proposition.

The trick? Be transparent from the start and keep your independence.

By: markevans

markevans — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:49:18 +0000

Agree. There are many ways to get "paid" by Twitter even if none of them involves money. In many ways, like blogging in terms of brand building, fun, etc.

By: AGORACOM - George

AGORACOM - George — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:07:28 +0000

In my opinion, you Twitter for one of the following reasons:

* Better Communicate With An Established Audience (clients, members, etc.)
* Networking
* Industry Intelligence
* Lead Generation / Branding
* Obtain Or Share Knowledge
* Fun / Socializing

Some of these provide the ability to indirectly generate revenue in the future – but none of these provide the ability to directly generate revenue today. Always has been, always will be.

Regards,
George

By: The Burnman

The Burnman — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:36:14 +0000

The more popular services like magpie and twittad become, the less followers the people who use them will have. I have been unfollowing every person who I discover to be using one of these services, and I have been encouraging others to do the same. Paid advertising tweets that are sent through without any way to identify them as advertising are unethical, and devalue reviews or recommendations which come through Twitter, as you never know if it is spam or a genuine recommendation

I understand that Twitter, Inc. will need to eventually generate a revenue stream to support operations, and if that means Twitter will be sending paid advertising through the service, while I will be unhappy about it, at least it will be keeping the service live. But services like magpie and twittad are basically hijacking Twitter, Inc.'s bandwidth and delivery system to inject advertising into a social media network, an activity I find to be highly questionable.

I would love to see Twitter, Inc. ban the use of such services, as they effect the quality of the Twitter experience. For myself, if I wanted excessive and spammy advertising, I would be on MySpace.

By: Bo Gowan

Bo Gowan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:26:36 +0000

You can if you twitter for a company. Twitter, grow your follower base, use your broad Twitter appeal as a proof point on your resume, get hired as a company's social media guru. You are your own personal Twitter start-up.

By: Brandon Cox

Brandon Cox — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:04:18 +0000

I'm guessing that you might be able to contract with companies to tweet on their behalf – to manage a social networking strategy for them, but Twitter would really only be part of the package.