What’s the value of a tweet?

According to Twittad’s tool, tweets from the Market Sentinel account are worth $4.22 and TweetValue’s valuation of our account amounted to $484. We couldn’t find any formulae to understand their calculations; however, both applications have fueled an investigation of opinions.

Brands, both personal and corporate, have taken different approaches to monetizing and gaining value from their Twitter accounts. 50 Cent earned $10m dollars by promoting his own company on Twitter, Souljaboy, another hip-hop act, managed only 13,000 album sales despite very intrusive plugging, and Toyota PR rewarded customers $500 for tweeting about their new purchases.

After reading all the examples and related posts, you soon realise that opinions are very subjective and case specific. General formulae, that can be applied to any account, still do not exist and it’s likely that the boffins at Twitter, responsible for monetizing the platform, are probably working on very similar sums.

The most useful post we found on the subject was written by Brian Carter from Fuel Interactive. Brian’s formula uses a media agency approach to calculating value, which is based on evaluating the total numbers of followers, average CPC, and the estimated percentage of your followers that are likely to see your tweet. Applying the formula to our very own account, delivers a cost per tweet of approximately $3.50 or £2.20.

Brian’s formula is a good start, but it doesn’t encompass crucial factors such as influence. Our own learning , from hands on analysis, has indicated that high numbers of followers do not necessarily substantiate strong influence.

The quality of an account holder’s social graph and the value of that social graph could dramatically adjust the value of a tweet. Evidently, there’s still lots of work to do here and we will continue to investigate the discussion, but for now, we’d love to hear any thoughts?

References:
Rapper 50 Cent makes $10m after plugging stock on Twitter – The Telegraph
What’s a Tweet Worth? Toyota, Soulja Boy Disagree – FastCompany
How Much Is Your Tweet Worth? – Search Engine People …