How to make money on Twitter ? Some ideas that work ( without screw ups ) !

I’m quite sure that most of us would’ve thought about this concept at least once in their Twitter life ! Is it really possible to make money through Twitter. I’m not a big fan of this concept and this article is the result of a follower asking me if I really make any money out of Twitter through my profile.

Honestly, I think making money on Twitter is not a big deal if you really want to do it. Its easy. But there is a decision you have to make between your reputation and the possibilities of money you can make. You have to hit a balancing act. And the reasons why I think so is because –

Twitter has not yet evolved in to a trusted monetization platform like blogs.

While blogs are now widely used for monetization purposes, people know what is being monetized and webmasters know where to draw the line. But Twitter is still at an infant stage (when considering monetization) and any effort now might raise eye brows, if you’re doing it in the “unbalanced way”.

So before even thinking about monetizing your twitter profile, think well if you can carry it off. If you can’t, you might just be spoiling an opportunity, which might come later.

So how can you make money with Twitter ? Is it really possible ?

Of course, it is, but I believe there are some pre requisites before you can start doing it. Just like any business, you cannot start off just with the air to fill your tyres. You need to have the tyres, the fuel and the car of course to start off successfully. Let’s see what are the pre-requisites you need.

1. An engaging and trusted number of followers.
I don’t really know if your follower number matters but if you’re engaging more with your followers, you have a higher chance to earn more.

2. Possibly a good blog or a website to let people know you more.
Having a blog helps because it might not just be possible for your followers to judge you just from your Twitter profile.

Possible ways of making money on Twitter

1. Direct advertisement from products/services

If you have a good follower number (who are engaging of course), products and services would be willing to pay you for tweeting about their products. These are like the banner ads you place on your blog. Companies would be more convinced if you can give them your “click through ratio” for the links you post on your tweets. URL tracking services like bit.ly or SU.pr can be used here.

2. Tweeting Affiliate links

If you’re an affiliate marketer, you could also try tweeting those affiliate links to your followers. If you’re a trusted brand, its hugely likely that they would try the products you recommend.

3. Traffic sharing through navigation bars / frames

Sharing your traffic on Twitter with possible interested parties is a good way to ensure a win-win situation for both your readers and advertisers. This can be done by showing off a frame or navigation bar to every link you tweet or (Like Guy Kawasaki does for alltop.com) using a custom URL shortner that will show pages from your advertiser.

4. Twitter profile background Ad space

Your twitter background image is an excellent ad space for products / services interested in increasing their brand visibility. There may not be a huge possibility for this and you have to be a super star on Twitter for potential advertisers to find you interesting but nevertheless this is indeed a possibility.

6. Tweeting links from other sites

Another possible way of earning money on Twitter is to sign up with websites to promote their content. Probably on going contracts on monthly pay out (or similar) to promote their content through your twitter channel.

7. Trying out the money making schemes on Twitter

I’m not sure if any of these really work because they are mostly automated and I’m not a big fan of automating things. There are some proved ways of making money with Twitter like Magpie (Review from Mashable), but I haven’t used it yet and is quite unsure how successful it can be.

How things get out of hand if you go for making money through Twitter.

Twitter is not a tool to make money . Period. its just a simple communication tool everybody loves using for the simplicity of things. So any move to “make money out of it” is like trying to deceive your followers, who may not have the slightest clue that you are tweeting sponsored ads. I’m quite sure that at least some people would find it a big turn off. But you could always try and make sure that the noise factor is low and thus make any sponsored ad just like your normal tweet. How ? Let’s see.

How not to annoy your followers with sponsored ads, while you still can make money.

- Do not accept bids from anyone who approaches you.

While its easy for one to get excited and over do it, I’d suggest to stick to your quality guidelines. I’m sure when you’re open to ads and have a good follower base, there would be offers from left and right, but wait..don’t just be greedy. Go through the website/product and see if it really would help your followers, otherwise keep away from the offer.

- Manually do a screening process of the potential advertisers.

Since there is no automation involved in any of the above mentioned points, do your reality check, every time.

- Stick to tweeting ONLY relevant ads.

Some ads might be well fit for a profile background image while some can go for the URL tweets. Make your decision on what’s best for you and your followers.

- Clearly mark the sponsored ads ads “Advertisement” so your followers know.

Sometimes, even if the ads are relevant, it would be much appreciated if you will mark your sponsored tweets as either “sponsored” or “advertisement”. So that your followers aren’t tricked !

- Don’t only tweet to make money. Know where to draw the line.

Like I said, don’t overdo it. Twitter is not meant for advertising or making money from it. Heck, it doesn’t even make any money for itself, until now. So make your choice, do it only if you think you can pull it off without hurting your followers, in fact only if it helps them in anyway.