They really do, actually. The only thing your proposal changes from my analysis is what pocket the money comes out of.
A Twitter account simply doesn't have $75 of economic value, to anybody -- and they need that to be true of every man, woman, child, and bot on the service. You can dice that $75 into $5 from Tropicana and $10 from BoA and $10 from Slicehost and... if you want. Is keeping a single marginally more happy worth $10 to BoA, when a phone call would only cost them $8, a chat on their website costs them about $1.50, and the average value of the free checking account that the disproportionately young and poor Twitter audience carries is only about $100 a year (mostly in overdraft fees which, haha, guess what they're probably complaining on Twitter about)? [Edit to add: $8 and $1.50 are numbers from a non-bank company who I was a CSR for, circa 2000, for response from a human in North America.]
I actually wrote that jab about the overdraft fees before realizing, hey, why not check to see if my assumptions are accurate.
[really hates Bank of America. Probably the sorriest excuse for a banking institution. Ever.]
Can you see the director of marketing just salivating over the opportunity to pay $10 to tweet these people? "I suppose I could be buying a click from AdWords on the keyword [i am a rich man looking for a credit card], but why use a scalable way to reach great customers when I could use a labor-intensive way to reach poor ones!" I'm not seeing it.
I'm also not seeing Twitter users putting up with automated and outsourced tweets, which are an absolute requirement if it is going to be used as anything but a toy for customer service.
@boacustomer: You just mentioned BoA in a tweet. Can we help you with anything?
@boacustomer: Thank you sirs i am truly regretful that you had a disfortunate experience with the bank. Can I be helping you today?
They don't have to make the service less accessible to the massed by charging per user. That was my original point, countering your point that they'd need to.
Customer service is just one example of making money. I think there are clear advantages to Twitter over Facebook related to the issue.
But there are certainly other ways. Freemium, content sales, live events, payments, etc.
I'm going to argue your point that Twitter users are poor or an undesirable demographic.
According to Aug '08 Hitwise data:
- 63% male
- 57% from California
- 25.9% 35-44 year olds
- 14.7% "stable career" type (young, metro areas)
- 12.3% "young cosmopolitan" (40-somethings, income > $250k)
I'm not an advertising expert, but some of those seem to be desirable demographics.
You're example of searching for BofA also doesn't make sense to me. If I worked for BofA, I wouldn't buy AdWords on my own name–if someone is already searching for me, they know who I am.
For every BofA complaint, you can probably also find someone looking for a new bank (or complaining about WaMu, Citi, Wells Fargo):
They really do, actually. The only thing your proposal changes from my analysis is what pocket the money comes out of.
A Twitter account simply doesn't have $75 of economic value, to anybody -- and they need that to be true of every man, woman, child, and bot on the service. You can dice that $75 into $5 from Tropicana and $10 from BoA and $10 from Slicehost and... if you want. Is keeping a single marginally more happy worth $10 to BoA, when a phone call would only cost them $8, a chat on their website costs them about $1.50, and the average value of the free checking account that the disproportionately young and poor Twitter audience carries is only about $100 a year (mostly in overdraft fees which, haha, guess what they're probably complaining on Twitter about)? [Edit to add: $8 and $1.50 are numbers from a non-bank company who I was a CSR for, circa 2000, for response from a human in North America.]
I actually wrote that jab about the overdraft fees before realizing, hey, why not check to see if my assumptions are accurate.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bank+of+america
[Closing my Bank of America BOA account tomorrow due to being hounded to sign up for a credit card I don't want/need & because of their fees.]
[Watching "Bank of America: Bad for America" VERY compelling http://tinyurl.com/bujr38]
[really hates Bank of America. Probably the sorriest excuse for a banking institution. Ever.]
Can you see the director of marketing just salivating over the opportunity to pay $10 to tweet these people? "I suppose I could be buying a click from AdWords on the keyword [i am a rich man looking for a credit card], but why use a scalable way to reach great customers when I could use a labor-intensive way to reach poor ones!" I'm not seeing it.
I'm also not seeing Twitter users putting up with automated and outsourced tweets, which are an absolute requirement if it is going to be used as anything but a toy for customer service.
@boacustomer: You just mentioned BoA in a tweet. Can we help you with anything?
@boacustomer: Thank you sirs i am truly regretful that you had a disfortunate experience with the bank. Can I be helping you today?