Twitter: Show Me the Money

Time is money...?
Saying it has "lots of time for experimentation (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511000,00.html," Twitter will explore and probably offer commercial accounts this year, using a subscription model as a revenue generator
(http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Twitter-Offering-Commercial-Accounts-For-a-Price-723430/).

Twitter as SaaS
Another or perhaps ancillary potential revenue source for Twitter is its inclusion on the dashboard of CRM giant SalesForce
(http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Salesforcecom-Puts-Twitter-in-Its-Service-Cloud-351280/).

Giving the Big Dogs a Bone
Microsoft is Facebook's biggest backer and may be the source that fosters cooperation, or at least "coopetition," between the two surging social networks as it recently announced its sponsorship of ExecTweets, which is designed to deliver the microblogs of big dog American execs to the great unwashed (us)
(http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Microsoft-Now-Sponsoring-Twitter-Enterprise-Site-725461/). While sponsorship is not a revenue stream, this strikes me as a kickin' marketing tactic: Well-timed and presenting directly the value of the service to a vain set of decision-makers who in recent years have probably authorized thousands of dollars on high-priced, low-paid, twenty-something consultants to poke around their companies and deliver reports stating
that everything will turn around if they just communicate better.

What is leads generation worth to you?
Applications like TweetDeck and Twhirl are being used for leads generation but Twitter hasn't figured out exactly how to procure a "finder's fee" for the business deals it helps facilitate. Twitter remains overtly committed to avoid an advertising model. This sets an interesting converse relationship with Facebook, which continues to vow it will not charge for subscriptions but is experimenting with advertising, and shows a bold willingness--determination?--to
participate in what would surely be a large share of a projected $2.4 billion chunk of cash flow in 2009 (http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/22493.asp).

Turn and face the strain.
Just because these networks started out "free" doesn't mean they're going to remain that way. According to your user agreement, they owe you little or nothing and can change the terms at any time. The more social media fits into your marketing and sales strategy, the more important it is to follow these developments and plan for changes.

Twitter and especially ExecTweets will be interesting to follow to see not only how well it takes hold at the corporate CEO level and what happens from there but to watch what happens within the social media industry thereafter. These folks didn't get to where they are by not thinking ahead.

The fact that Microsoft is Facebook's sugar daddy and chief investor in ExecTweets indicates rubber is getting closer to meeting road in the developing...er, relationship...between the two networks. Astute social media users and strategists will be ready for any and all possible changes. That is, to swiftly kick with the current.

About the Blogger
Mike Hanbery (http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehanbery) is an Executive MBA with 20 years of experience in marketing and media at the national and local level
for startups to Fortune 500. His company, Hanbery & Hanbery, Inc. (http://www.hanbery.com) works with small nonprofit and for profit businesses in
accounting, business development and marketing. Mike speaks on, trains, designs and implements social media strategies and is co-author of the soon to be
released book: Connect and Contribute: Creating a Social Business.