What’s a tweet? About $58 per character

Social monetization myths abound.  They run the gamut from assertions that Kim Kardashian gets $10,000 per tweet (true, according to NYMag) to the inference of a “free” social media in the headline of the Business Insider article “P&G CEO to lay off 1600 after discovering it’s free to advertise on Facebook and Google”    The reality is that for the right audience the monetization of a content via Twitter can been connected with legitimate analytics to a figure of about $58 per character (using an $8,000 per tweet value) in each  tweet according to the same NYMag article.

The analytics come in this case from Ad.ly – a company that is known as one of the leaders in the realm of identifying “influencer” celebs (aka the ones that have built a strong following) and connecting them with audiences.  On their website they identify moms, sports fans, teen girls, teen boys, women 18-34 and men 18-34 as the audiences that match up with the celebs who monetize their fan worship with overt endorsements. Segmentation that matches nicely with the markets that are high users of the platform such as followers of sports and reality TV (both consistently score high in Rentrak social media index).

The most popular measurement of Twitter monetization is the case of Charlie Sheen’s tweet.  NYMag  reports; “Sheen’s tweet for Internships.com generated 95,333 clicks in the first hour and 450,000 clicks in 48 hours, created a worldwide trending topic out of #tigerbloodintern, attracted 82,148 internship applications from 181 countries, and added 1 million additional visits to Internships.com.”

Sheen was reportedly paid $50,000 for that tweet – about $147 per character.  Yah, Twitter is not just about what folks had for lunch today.  Myth debunked!

Room for Discussion

Do you think that the price of the tweet is worth the response.  How does Charlie Sheen’s tweet pricing and response compare to other options you could purchase with $50,000?

For the love of money – be good to your fans!

“In planning a new picture, we don’t think of grownups and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our picture can help recall.” - Walt Disney

Valuing fan love is a sustainable revenue strategy - and the right thing to do.

Valuing fan love is a sustainable revenue strategy - and the right thing to do.

Disney’s perspective of product development and fan respect offers great clarity to the commitment Disney (and Pixar) makes to its fans.  It’s a commitment that continues resounds in a entertainment business where the power of fanship and fandom (the emotional connection consumers make in defining their self concept and in socially connecting around any given entertainment) is often manhandled.

Celebrity and sports marketing is an easy area to illustrate fan manhandling. Be it the bad boy behavior of the overt addict in Charlie Sheen, or the illegal behavior of athletes like Michael Vick or the cheating done by Patriot’s coach Bill Belichick.   Still, those very celebrities thrive and the legalized monopoly of our major league teams continues to flourish and raise prices even in a recessionary period.

Contrast this to the positive effect of an athlete like Tim Tebow and an organization like Disney. They demonstrate just how eager fans are to connect to people and companies that respect the adoration of their fans and show it by how they act in a social responsible fashion.

Entertainment marketers make daily ethical choices that play on the “love” of their core fans who demonstrate their affection with hard-earned dollars.  Just like in a relationship between two people, that love needs to be treated respectfully.  Sure monetization has to happen to sustain sport, music, movies, art and all entertainment.  But ethical consideration and social responsibility in marketing decisions and behavior can go a long way to creating value and insuring sustainable revenue from your fans.  Disney and Tim Tebow  are great examples of the of creating value by valuing fanship and fandom.

Room for discussion:

The CBS Evening News reported in this video on the results of a probe that found 1 in 14 college football players had a criminal record.  If you were the marketing director for the University of Pittsburgh Panther football team under the conditions in the video, what affect would the high presence of criminal records have on your marketing of the team?  How would it affect your position as marketing director? What would you do about it?

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