In 30 days, I have found myself in a position where I now have over 39,000 Twitter Followers which in Twitterdom is a mass of Tweeps, and oh yes, I thank and am very grateful to the powers that be. And indeed, the small business owner in me who is looking at everything I can possibly monetize thought, "Hmm, how can I make money from my Twitter?"
Someone suggested to me Magpie, an ad network for Twitter. Here is a very cute diagram of how Magpie works and how you the Twitterer make dinero. And here, you can plug in your Twitter name and Magpie will give you a ballpark of how much you could potentially make per month. So, I plugged in my Twitter name: skinnyjeans, and here's how much coin Magpie says I could make:
That 45,274 Euros per month converts today to about $58,237 USD per month which is $698,844 USD per year. So um, yeah, I fell out of my chair. Wouldn't you? So see, Magpie is looking very alluring about now, and the idea of being a six figure Twitterer just sounds pretty amazing. Is there even anyone doing that? If you know, please share.
Twittering is sooooo much easier than blogging and right now, if I could actually make that kinda bank or even 1/7 of that amount with Magpie just tweeting, then blogging would go bye-bye or I'd just use my blogs to elaborate on tweets because I don't even make any where (no where) near that kind of money through my blogs where I also have to work 10 times harder. However, let's come back down to earth...
A dose of reality
After basking in the momentary high of "zOMG! I'd be loaded!" and "Magpie is doing some Jedi mind trick math to hypnotize us with $$$ delusions," I came back down to reality because there is a price, harsh truth, and conditions for everything, the business person in me chimes in. I'm an optimist but I'm no Pollyanna either. Also, I want to be sensitive to my Followers. In fact, I asked my Followers if any of them had used Magpie and if so, how did their Followers react to the ads. I got some really fabulous insight including this review on how Magpie is a terrible idea.
I scoured the interwebs for other reviews and thoughts, and the general consensus was, "Don't go there! Danger Will Robinson! But if you do, expect your Followers to un-follow you in a heartbeat because no one wants to see ads in someone's Twitter stream, and you'll be branded a spammer which might as well puts you in the same category as ambulance chasers."
So, I get that people don't like to get bombarded with spam and ads because the stuff is annoying, and the cool thing about Twitter is that it's refreshingly ad free. Yes, people do shill products and services but you don't have obvious ads in your face. However, I don't entirely agree that ads are bad, it's just the execution of the ad delivery is bad, but I'll get into that in another post.
For today, I'm going to focus on why I think Magpie in its current form is not an optimal revenue generating option. And I emphasize "today" because I'll give Magpie the benefit of the option to change their model to better fit the Twitter environment...someday.
Why I'm not won over
- In order for Magpie to put tweet ads in your stream you have to give them access into your Twitter account which I'm sorry, I do not want any third party to have access into any of my accounts with my personal name on them. No way Jose! However, technically, I do understand that Magpie needs to do this because today there is no other way to get the ad tweets with the tracking codes in. It's not like a blog where the ad network can just give you ad code snippets and you put that code in the appropriate place in your blog.
- The Magpie ad appears as a tweet from you. So, it really appears as more than just an ad, it looks like a personal endorsement from you because it's your lovely head next to the tweet. Like this (FYI, I'm not a Magpie member. I just borrowed the text and did an example tweet because if you're like me, I like visuals. I deleted this off my real account):
To me a personal endorsement has more value than an ad in the sidebar like in a blog. For example, on my blogs I've run ads from M&M's and Pringles through the blog ad network I was with at the time, but I, me Stephanie, don't necessarily personally endorse M&M's or Pringles. And actually, I did end the relationship with said ad network mainly because I was getting too many ads like the M&M's or Pringles that were conflicting with the overall message of healthy living on my blog Back in Skinny Jeans (BISJ).
I bit my tongue for awhile on those ads because although they weren't optimal, it wasn't totally "no way" and it was good money. Admittedly I compromised some values for cash, so I made a choice and I could live with it. And yeah, there are other types of ads that show up on BISJ that don't jive with my brand values, but it's coming through Google AdSense, and don't get me started on them. Again, not optimal, but it works good from a strictly monetizing perspective until I can figure something else out. I've blogged to my audience for their patience and understanding.
If M&M's would to advertise through Magpie, the tweet ad would look like I'm giving a personal endorsement of M&M's, and I'm not inclined to do that. Now if M&M's created an organic candy, then that would be awesome and I would do it because the organic feature fits in with my brand values.
I'm actually very selective about what I personally endorse because I'm slightly neurotic about my online brand which is where I get a bit Martha Stewart. When I do an endorsement, it's not often and it's only something I use or have used myself, or it's a cause I totally believe in. My audience knows this about me, so there is higher value when I do the specific shout outs and the reaction is usually, "Oh of course, this is something I can totally see Stephanie using or believing in."
- The identifier that a tweet is a Magpie ad is that the first word of the tweet is #magpie like in the above example. See here for some real examples. There are thousands and thousands of people who sign up with Twitter each day, and most of them have no idea what the hashtag symbol # plus word means. As people become more familiar with the hashtags they figure it out but again, not a clue, so again, it just looks like another regular tweet from you.
- The Magpie ads sound like ads, and would stick out like a sore thumb because the tone is obviously different than the Twitter owner's voice. Anything that smells, sounds, and looks like an ad is annoying, and yes, it would turn off Followers immediately. I believe people are open to product and service discussions but how it's written and the context of its presence is vital. I've talked about products before and it didn't turn people away in droves, and I believe it's because I framed the product tweet in a context to my normal discussions like when I talked about SIGG water bottles and tied it into one of my daily hydration reminders. You can't talk about healthy living and not talk about products like shoes, water bottles, food bars, and DVDs. I talk about Whole Foods all the time because it's my second home.
If there is full disclosure, I see no problem with sponsored tweets or posts because I as a professional blogger/twitterer have to make a living, and my audience knows I do this for a living. I also do not consider myself a journalist as I elaborated here. I'm a healthy living evangelist who is helping people live their most healthy and authentic lives, and I will recommend the things I use, believe in, or see as valuable to others, and why shouldn't I be paid for that value? Martha Stewart, Oprah, Rachel Ray, get paid doing that so why not bloggers, our medium is the web instead of TV?
A bigger overall question is whether monetizing your Twitter is evil or not, and I say no. One day, Twitter itself will have to monetize because they are a business and at the end of the day they will need to show a profit. People can't honestly expect to not see ads on Twitter anywhere, ever. To me, it's the delivery and execution of that monetization which can get evil and annoying. So that is the problem we have to work on and solve today, how can we make money from our Twitter and be cool with our audience?
At this time in its current form, I personally wouldn't use Magpie for @skinnyjeans, but I like the idea of it, and I'm open to listening if Magpie decides to change up some of its features in the future because hello, $698,000 potential! Okay, yeah, sorry can't help get sucked into the tractor beam because again, if I could even make 1/7 of that total from my Twitter, I like anyone else would be thrilled!
