Monday, October 3, 2011

Twitter Rolls Out Beta Test for Cost per Follow & Cost per Action

By John Rowa


As you avidly follow your favorite celebrities or sports heroes on Twitter, you probably have noticed the promoted tweets in your timeline--now there will be more. Twitter sent emails to specific businesses, including Free Custom Website, announcing the BETA test launch of 2 brand new promoted products.

According to the Northern California-based social media business, the first sales model, called "Cost-per-Follow" (CPF), offers businesses to bid between $2-3 on average for followers on their Twitter account. They also announced that the second model, "Cost-per-Enagement" (CPE), at an average cost of $0.50 for every favorite, @Replies, RT, and click, on the promoted business' account.

Barring a setback on the BETA test, expect Twitter to roll out the CPF and CPE models to businesses around the world. The sales programs which obviously mimicks Google's insanely sucessful Adwords program, could provide greater need for businesses to be active in their networks and engage with their users much more personally, rather than focusing on simple paid real estate advertisement.

The current trial campaign has stiff requirements, as the email Twitter sent out asks for only businesses to participate that have a minimum marketing budget of $5,000 per month for 3 months, active Twitter feeds, and the ability to work with Twitter to share feedback. This should limit the campaign to only the most high brow social media users and large corporations. However, with such great potential to grow the programs using AdWords as a model, don't expect Twitter to hold these programs back for long.

Small businesses could celebrate the campaign as a great chance to focus on high quality users who are more likely to turn into conversions, if and when these products are opened to the public. So, lawyers who actively use their Twitter accounts could focus exclusively on Twitter users interested or looking for law firm help, getting the most out of their use of Twitter.

And getting the most out of Twitter could possibly, and finally, be Twitter itself with these 2 promoted products. Afterall, Twitter has yet to fully monitize its massive, 100+ million user base and the best way for it to do that is by giving power to the businesses on its network.




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