According to a WebBizIdeas.com poll of 850 Twitter business users based in the US, 26% would be prepared to pay for additional “business functionality” on Twitter.  Of those prepared to pay, 8% would spend more than $100 per month.

 

The poll found:

 

 

Yes – 26%

No – 31%

Unsure – 43%

$0-$20 – 38%

$20-$50 – 31%

$50-$100 – 23%

$100+ -8%

 

 

 

Price per action/click/impression – 68%

Increase followers – 21%

Unsure – 11%

 

 

 

 

0-20% – 31%

20-40% – 13%

40-60% – 16%

60-80 – 16%

80-100% – 24%

 

 

 

Yes – 8%

No – 89%

Unsure – 3%

 

Twitter business users are not enthusiastic about paying for additional followers, with 68% favoring price per action/click/impression as an approach to advertising. One reason for this could be targeting – most businesses do not consider all of their followers to be potential customers. Twitter would likely address this issue through providing targeting.

 

Jeff Foster of WebBizIdeas.com favors a follower-based approach to advertising on Twitter: Twitter should monetize through promoting suggested users throughout their site and possibly in the feed. Businesses could bid on a “price per follower” basis, choosing which location, age group or keywords they wish to target. Like Google and Adwords, this business model will interweave perfectly with their core product.  

 

With 8% of Twitter business users prepared to pay for analytics alone, this could be a simple method of creating a sizeable revenue stream. In addition to business use, personal users might also be interested in subscribing to the service.