Twitter monetization: 5 lessons in pricing and product

What could a small business owner possibly learn from looking at one of the most hyped social media platforms?

The big news has been filtering through interviews and blogs: Twitter, previously free, now has a strategy to make money.

Lesson 1: You can have a great product that everyone loves, but it won’t make you a living unless you’re monetizing it in some way.

The problem for them is just that; currently, all services are free.

Lesson 2: Once prices are set at a certain level, the product is depicted as having that value. It’s difficult to raise prices significantly without getting complaints.

The founders currently propose to charge for companies who are currently using Twitter.

Lesson 3: If they’re making money out of your services, they can afford to pay some of it to you…

There have been many rumours about this, but so far the only confirmation is that current services will remain free with premium services being added.

Lesson 4: Want to get more money? Give more value.

These might include a company account verification feature – important given the number of impersonations we’ve been seeing. Once a few companies start using a feature like that it will start to be an obligation for the rest.

Lesson 5: Offer services which are contagious.

However, Twitter has been vague so far about exact offerings.

If they’re smart they’ll use the buzz and multitude of suggestions from the blogging community to gather ideas on what would be accepted and what wouldn’t.

Lesson 5: Listen.

Story source: IT World