The value of a large Twitter following
Recently there was an interesting article in the Tech Crunch about the value of Twitter Traffic and the staggering amount of money that people are willing to pay for a slot in the top 20 of the suggested list on the Twitter site. From Jason Calcanis’ Twitter stream:
“It’s actually a standing offer to Twitter. $120k for one of the twenty slots. In fact, I’ll pay $250k for two years in advance.”
Calcanis went even further to outline why he was willing to pay that amount of money for such a placement, indicating that he felt such a place in the top 20 would be worth $1M in 5 years time – equating it to levels spent on ads in the Superbowl.
I believe Calcanis is not alone in this theory. Even though he doesn’t claim to be willing to pay the same upfront costs as Calcanis, Guy Kawasaki professes his willingness to pay upwards of $500/month for using Twitter. He talks about his prolific use of Twitter in marketing his brand and that of Alltop in a recent interview with Jennifer Jones on Marketing Voices. He says “I don’t know how we would do Alltop without Twitter” and likens it to a “free and instant announcement system“. With more than ninety thousand followers being constantly exposed to his ‘brand’ and that of Alltop via his Twitter stream – it’s not surprising to see his loyalty and willingness to pay for this communication vehicle.