As I mention in my report 'How to Monetize Twitter', for those who want to make money off their Twitter Accounts, there are several options but the two key players are Izea through their Sponsored Tweets unit and RevTwt. There are others but of much less significance. Of late 'MyLikes' has joined the fray and seems to be making life difficult for the older more entrenched counterparts.
Izea has been dragging it's feet and has not been able to get enough advertisers on board to provide a consistent source of revenue for Twitter users. Izea's model has been different than RevTwt – it allows advertisers to sponsor a Twitter account at a predetermined dollar amount. The advertiser sends out a tweet to the followers of the account and expects a certain number of clicks in return. If the number of clicks generated are less than the expected amount, the advertiser re-sends the tweet a couple of more times at no extra charge. RevTwt on the other hand has been strictly pay per click. You tweet an advertisers message and you get paid by the number of clicks generated. The advertiser does not have to commit to a certain amount per Twitter account sponsored and pays strictly on the basis of clicks generated. RevTwt has been very regular in providing a steady stream of advertisers and Twitter users have been making a consistent albeit small amount of money using the RevTwt pay per click model.
In comes MyLikes with the Pay Per Click model like RevTwt. It has other bells and whistles but what matters to marketers is the revenue model. MyLikes has a Pay-Per-Click model very similar to RevTwt. It also offers a Pay Per Tweet model but few advertisers have taken to that. Where MyLikes has tilted the field in it's favor is through it's payment model. Izea pays you only when you accumulate at least $50 in your account. Can you imagine what a good funding source it is for Izea to hold on to other peoples money. I bet it funds a good percentage of their business. It's like free money for Izea. Izea does not have an abundance of advertisers and consequently very few people generate enough clicks to get to $50 in a year and many abandon their accounts. All that money stays with Izea.
RevTwt pays out once your account accumulates $20. A much better model than Izea.
MyLikes on the other hand pays out every Friday as long as you have more than $2 in your account, yes that is two dollars. You start seeing results, that is cash in your PayPal account very very quickly. Who do you think marketers are flocking to. I believe Izea's Sponsored Tweets had the lead but it took advantage of it's members through it's ridiculous payment model. Besides, it did not work hard enough to bring on board enough advertisers. RevTwt is holding it's own as it has done a better job of getting quite a few advertisers on board and the payment model is a bit more reasonable. It should consider lowering it's payout amount though to compete better. In the meantime, MyLikes has the momentum and it's competitors better scramble.
Feel free to post your comments and your thoughts below. Let's help each other out.