Pay with a Tweet - Just another one-hit wonder?
It got surprisingly quiet about Pay with a Tweet recently.
Pay with a Tweet is a social commerce model developed by two Germans looking for a new way to promote their ebook "O My God What Happened and What Should I Do?" the social way. With Pay with a Tweet, digital goods are paid for just by tweeting about them. (It is not to be mistaken with "pay per tweet" by the way, which is an entirely different story and quite dubious in my eyes.) The system is not driven by financial motivation. Instead, its "currency" is recommendations, referrals and word of mouth.
A tweet used to "pay" for the book "O My God What Happened and What Should I Do?"
Since their big launch this summer (at least in Germany), nothing new has happened on their website. I mean, Cologne's Hotel 'Domspitzen' selling beer for a tweet is still their most exciting testimonial?! There must be more than this! Some musicians have got the hang of it, promoting their new albums (The Teenagers, Jonny Broadway, and some others). But there should be authors out there looking for ways to give people a sneak preview of their writing, brands looking to ‘sell’ trial products, software developers that need promotion for their new app, etc., etc.
So, at what point did the fire go out? And why? Is it because in place of payments there is only good will?
I, for one, am still very passionate about this new social commerce model and would love to see more of it. Let me tell you why.
Turning tweets into currency
Social Media is all about sharing. Obtrusive advertising and money payments are all but entirely banned from the social media sphere. But that does not necessarily mean that people aren't willing to give credit where credit is due, quite the contrary: if users see the value in a certain piece of information, service or good, they often prove to be quite generous with their ‘virtual strokes’, paying for it with retweets, comments, ilikes, etc.
Pay with a Tweet builds on this dynamic with a social commerce model, where people pay using their network as currency. Pay With a Tweet might seem like just another way of hidden spamming, as you suggest a product to your network prior to testing it yourself. But I’m only telling my followers that I’m interested in the product. Rather than blunt advertising, Pay with a Tweet is actually a fairly transparent, organic way for companies to promote their product. Yet, they are still able to steer the viral buzz. Finally, there is a marketing model that has adapted to the sharing mentality of social media.
I still see great potential in this new marketing model. Currently, the service works only with twitter. But I’m pretty sure the concept will soon transfer to other social networks as well. Why not as a Pay with a Like, or with a Comment.
How do you view Pay with a Tweet's short-lived success?
