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You are here: Home / Blog / Social Media Marketing / TweetUp: Paid Search Goldmine?

TweetUp: Paid Search Goldmine?

Posted by on April 12, 2010 · 3 Comments 

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Bill Gross is no stranger to good ideas and the IdeaLabs founder (and paid search guru) has what may well be another one. TweetUp, newly launched this past Sunday evening, is being hailed as something that may very well monetize search for Twitter. TweetUp is designed to work in conjunction with Twitter’s regular search function and provide results based on keyword searches. Gross delves into the story in-depth on a recent blog post and MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan also has written a terrific article covering this launch.

Sound farfetched? Well, the service is modeled after Google’s AdSense and AdWords programs, and you’d be hard pressed to call either of them bad ideas. This is something that I’d venture a guess that many folks will be watching with interest. I know that I will be.

Interested in exploring? Go to TweetUp and open an account. There is an incentive for the first 1,000 users, which provides them with a $100 credit for their involvement as beta testers of the service. By signing up, users are permitted to add search keywords to their profiles. The service essentially allows users to bid for their tweets rise to the top. Their success in that regard will be based on the relevance of their tweet, number of RTs it receives, as well as the number of followers and relative “influence” in the Twitterverse of that particular Twitter user.

Gross is well-respected in the online world and came up with the idea at a TED event just a few months ago. In pretty much the speed of light, he managed to raise some $3.5 million in funding, so I’d say that the idea definitely has legs. Or at least his investors thought so.

Check it out. I’d love to know what you think.

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  • Irant

    My opinion is that not everything is a search engine, nor is it suitable for the “Google System.” The risk of marginalizing the medium – much the same way that email has been marginalized because of all the efforts to turn it into a paid marketing platform – is pretty significant.

    One could argue that this is a move limited to the search function, and that it only boosts a given user's tweets in search results, but the logical extension of this plan is “paid influence” rather than “earned influence.” Twitter is only a tool that can be used as part of a larger strategy anyway – those whose only goal is to turn it into a one to one marketing platform are going to hit the limits of scalability very quickly. Buying influence will only accelerate the decline of the true value of Twitter, and its usefulness as a way to converse (and ping your audience with targeted information) will rapidly decline as people flee under the weight of commercial solicitations.

    Nice post, Shelly – I hope I'm wrong, but I see Facebook and Twitter making the same mistakes – they aren't Google, people don't go to them for the same reasons they go to Google, so to adopt the Google System makes little sense. It's a hammer trying to find a nail.

    K

  • ShellyKramer

    I agree with you, Kevin. I love the fact that on Twitter you must earn your
    influence – one of the reasons I prefer the platform, actually.

    But, as a marketer, I feel compelled to explore platforms like this and see
    what potential benefit, if any, they might have for my clients.

    The fact that the founder of TweetUp has had success in the search realm
    before makes me pay more attention to this venture than I might otherwise
    but, like you, for me the jury is very much out on this one.

    It will be interesting, though, to see what develops.

    Thanks for the read and comment – both very much appreciated!

  • fjfonseca

    Hello Shelly,
    It took me sometime to read this and I'm sorry for that.
    I have to agree with IRant on this one and I will even add a bit more: My Twitter search is my network of followers and people I follow. When I need ant advice/help I just send a tweet out and usually help comes in the shape of tiny urls.

    I can't remember the last time I clicked on a Google Advertising Link or a Facebook one and I think it will be a long time till I click on one of these.

    Chirp starts tomorrow and there is a lot of talk about the new Twitter API. Let's see how that develops as well.

    I c

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