The New York Times reported today that PhoneDog, a cellular phone website with 2.5 million unique visitors monthly, sued a former employee, claiming the “Twitter list was a customer list, and [the plaintiff seeks] damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months, for a total of $340,000.” The $2.50 per month is far too much and the the resultant damages calculation is nonsensical. The company does not have access to his account data to measure how much their former employee’s followers are worth.
These are the stats on Jack Dorsey’s Twitter.com account. What is the value of a tweet from him? How much would you pay if he agreed to be a spokesman and tweet about a promotion your company is launching?
With promoted tweets campaigns offered by Twitter or Sponsored Tweets (run by sponsoredtweets.com) there are metrics in place that go beyond trying to measure a number that has little significance in and of itself– like number of followers. Instead, sponsored tweets value a specific user whose true social media Klout can be measured qualitatively by a specialist— a living, breathing person– researching a Twitter user’s true influence. Promoted tweets, similarly, do not claim to use number of followers or artificial klout.com type metrics.
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If you are interested in using promotional tweets via Twitter or sponsored tweets, please contact Van Buskirk for reasonably priced strategy consulting.
