Enzo Woo's Blog

Whether you are conglomerate like Altria (formerly Phillip Morris Companies Inc.) and Time Warner, or just a new start up like Sauder’s pride and joy, Kiip by alumnus Brian Wong, word of mouth is an absolutely invaluable asset for any company. Really how valuable is it though? As the writers at Social Commerce Today explain, it might be just as valuable as money in exchange for your product or service. Would a company really be willing to accept a simple Tweet, a message on the ubiquitous social networking site Twitter, now proving to be a gold mine for advertising?

Pay With a Tweet, the world’s first pure social network payment system is doing the previously unthinkable. Allowing companies to give away products for a simple online click is not yet something that has quite caught on in the mainstream marketplace, but how farfetched is this idea, really? At the tip of the iceberg, it seems like a simple concept, but the potential impacts could be gigantic. Each time a consumer pays with a tweet, their ‘followers’, a number that can range from five to millions, hear about the product. With a popular product or service, the multiplier effect comes into place, and has the potential to create a massive advertising campaign that would have likely cost bundles more to generate on a more traditional model.

Legitimate Multiplier Effect or Pyramid Scheme?

Don’t believe the power of Tweets? Check out Sponsored Tweets an advertising service that allows users to promote anything from a new song to a product, paying huge sums of money, yes real cash, per Tweet; for example, a celebrity like Lindsay Lohan draws $2985.80 USD and Michael Ian Black an impressive $5882.50 USD to click a button.

Want to get Kardashian to Tweet for you? $8,000 USD.

So now, you know that this kind of service exists – will you use it? It does not appear that the idea has caught onto significant sellers, although the service claims that around 500,000 transactions have been made so far on this futuristic platform. Unfortunately for marketers, even celebrity Tweets have been shown to have limited success as a customer, Campus Live, explains, and if the average Joe Tweets a message to his 50 followers, will it be a worthwhile return in lieu of cash for newer companies, who are also the ones that are the most cash-strapped?

Time will tell, and although this idea is certainly interesting to think about, whether it actually becomes relevant in the mainstream market remains to be (somewhat dubiously) seen.

Is this Tweet service the real deal or a salesman's pipe dream?

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