It's interesting to see that Twitter is now trying to monetize its popularity. This is nothing groundbreaking. Yammer, for example, is one that uses twitter kind of messaging system as an internal communications tool. Of course, to give credit to the company, Yammer has a different UI and implemented other features that have yet to be done on Twitter. ( http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/yammer-launches-at-tc50-twitter-for-companies/#comments ). Whether Yammer can take off, it the jury is still out.
I've subscribed to Yammer but I didn't post any messages. It's just an idle account; Twitter on the other hand is very much close to my heart. Why so, I have asked myself. I think this lies in the culture of the company and the job nature of the user. There are only less than 10 Yammer users in my company. Most of us have smartphones and can check our emails anywhere anytime. I can't use Yammer to broadcast as my job revolves around strategic planning and budgets as well as go to market plans on our new initiatives. I deal alot with senior management and they are not on Yammer (in fact, I doubt they have heard about Twitter either). As a matter of fact, sending SMS is much faster and quicker if you want a more immediate response (at least that's what I experience). Sounds sad, but all is not lost. Does that mean there is no viability at this stage? To the contrary, I think there is.
Back to what I think Twitter can do. This is by no means an exhaustive list or a detailed analysis. It's something that I thought of based on my work experience. Perhaps this list can be used for further brainstorming by Twitter or for people who are keen to be Twitter's first product manager.
1. Twitter can be a new form of viral marketing tool for companies to try out. First understand your base first. What's the profile of your customers? Active base vs inactive. How many new twitter accounts are created on average per month or week for example. What is the size of the base in different geographical locations?
2. Have a ready educational / sales kit. Twitter is new. Show them the benefits. My first targets would probably be those companies who already have their own employee blogs, forums or live online customer care or truly care about customer experience or educational institutions which are into e-learning.
3. Get one or two success stories first (even if it's not money-making). You need success stories to build credibility and momentum.
4. Decide on the types of packages / solutions for the target markets. Yammer is in a pretty niche area. I do not think it's wise to restrict the business model to usin g corporate emails. It should be an option but not mandatory. SMEs may not have corporate emails. They may rely on the good old free emails by Yahoo or Gmail or Hotmail.
5. If you still want to gun for the big accounts, just take note that big enterprises usually have strict policies on adoption of technologies. It will take quite a while before the company endorses such technologies. If you want to try out, always try to talk to the "innovation" department if the company has one and convince then to implement this as a trial. Or to the media department. Sell to the users the benefits. Then meet the IS. Tell them not only the ease of policing and cost savings, but also the benefits to the company.
6. Scalability is important. I think unless you are already pretty established, it will not make sense to charge by per user account for large corporation. You may want to work out a different pricing scheme.
7. Security and Audit trail. This can be important if this is to be used as part of a corporate tool especially for bigger enterprises. I'm not sure how easy it is to implement twitter with security features or with audit trail but these are things that Twitter has to think through if it wants to work with big corporations.
8. SME is a big untapped market. They can be the early adopters. Help SMEs to learn how to incorporate twitter into their websites and how to integrate with their CMS to do content broadcast for their followers. Or work with web-based services targeting at SMEs to see how to integrate twitter into the services. For example, SME may use an online project room and when an update is done, an automessage can be sent out to the relevant parties as Direct Messages. This also means that Twitter must have an easy way for "guest" use instead of making it mandatory for everyone who wants to use the service to have to register and sign up.
9. Work with online communities websites to be the "enabler" for these communities websites. Have some capability built into Twitter that can do online polls or surveys. Have ready plugins that can be included easily into applications especially productivity tools like Outlook or Powerpoints. For example, if I made revision to a shared document, I can easily send an auto-message to my counterparts. Or complement an email marketing tool.
10. Work with handset makers or even telco companies to have the twitter app made available on the phones either as a java applet or iphone app or blackberry app or see how to integrate it even more tightly into their services. However, you may want to think through if you want to work with them if they insist on rebranding or co-branding. Shozu (www.shozu.com) for example is made available on many handsets and have tie ups with some telco companies.
{NEW} 11. SMS is still the predominant application used on mobile phones. Twitter should still proactively engage with the telco operators to encourage the people to use Twitter. To take it a step further. Most telco operators have an ISP arm and have email hosting. Work with them to offer a bundled email-cum-twitter account which can have different features depending on whether this is offered to end consumers or business customers. Show them how stickiness can be achieved. For example, the twitter service can be integrated into the calendaring feature and a reminder tweet can be sent out to all the invitees for the upcoming appointment or a reminder tweet on the scheduled IM conference. Alternatively, if an online listing service is also provided as a community space for the SME customers to post their goods and services, the same twitter account can be linked to payment gateway. This involves some work at the API level but it's worthwhile to think about it. Twitter service can be further expanded to work with companies such as airline companies to send out tweets to inform users about the flight schedule status.
12. We all talk about digital home and the all-in-one box that sits in the living room that helps to control the room aircon, turn on the TV set, switch off the music player. How about working with the partners to offer a twitter service that can be used as a way for users to send a tweet that acts as an instruction to remotely control these?
13. Create some incentives for referrals. And constantly rollout new or improved features. Be open and transparent to feedback.
14. Have different pricing models. Can be a subscription model, capped plan, pay per use, etc.
15. Once you have a big enough mass market, you can even offer to do "twitter-broadcasting" much like SMS-broadcasting.
16. Another potential area is advertising. Something similar to location-based advertising. You walk into a mall and a promotional code is pushed to your twitter account. Well, Twitter probably needs to work with some key retailers to agree to adopt the Twitter platform first so that they can get their regular customer base to sign up to create the viral marketing effect.
If you are interested to discuss more, leave me a comment or send me a tweet @poohwinn
I just came across the interview by Twitter CEO. Check out here.
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About this Job
As Twitter's first product manager focused on revenue generation, you will play a defining role in the formulation of Twitter's business. Your job will be to lead the definition and execution of the products and features that will lead to monetization of the Twitter platform.
Responsibilities
- Define products and feature sets of commercial-oriented Twitter applications
- Manage the prioritization and development of new products and features
- Work closely with engineering to develop product functionality
- Work closely with customer support to solve issues and maximize user satisfaction
- Do customer research to inform product decisions
- Create detailed cost and revenue models
- Define product positioning and marketing plans
- Analyze and report product success
Qualifications
- Experience managing web-based software products
- Strong familiarity with online advertising and marketing models
- Strong grasp of user-experience design
- Enthusiasm for talking to customers
- Great project-management skills
- Excellent written communication and presentation skills
- Active Twitter user
Bonus Points
- Strong technical and data-mining skills
Working at Twitter
Twitter offers competitive salaries and full benefits, including health, dental, vacation, 401k, and stock options. We work in a bright, sunny office in San Francisco. And you'll be joining a unique group of experienced folks who are doing their best work to create something great.
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