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A reader asked a great question today (great, in light of the recent discussions elsewhere on the merits of ghosttweeting and paid tweeting). She wanted to know how much she should charge to post updates to Twitter for a client.
I honestly didn’t have an answer. There isn’t exactly a long history to fall back on, and it could depend heavily on a number of factors (like how many updates, whether they’re quick thoughts or would involve a lot of time link-hunting, etc.). So for the sake of “getting with the times,” let me pose that question to all of you instead. How much would you charge someone to write updates for their Twitter account?
If you think about it, length alone doesn’t mean much. Sure, it’s only 140 characters per tweet. But is that more marketing copy (think of the hundreds or thousands of dollars you might be paid for writing a short ad slogan), or is it more in line with forum posting (notorious for pay of $.05 – .20 per post)? If you normally charged a penny per word, is that what you’d go with? What if you normally charged closer to $1.00 per word? Would you charge per word, per tweet, or maybe even per character?
So if we have any paid tweeters out there in freelance writing land this morning, share your thoughts. How do you charge, and how much do you charge?
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About the Author: Jennifer Mattern
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TAGS: ghosttweeting, ghostwriting, paid tweeting, tweets, twitter
Tweeting has become a recent request of writers. I tend to go with a flat fee based on how many “tweets” and the time required. Although only 140 characters, Twittering can be viewed as short-form writing.
I would probably charge a flat fee as well. For example, if they wanted 10 tweets every week day, I would charge 150 dollars per week.
That’s just an estimate, though.
I tend to approach all of my freelance writing work with a ballpark hourly figure in mind. That applies to my work on Twitter as well. I guesstimate how long the work is going to take each week and charge a flat hourly rate for that amount. If there’s time left over at the end of the week for what I’ve charged then I use that time to try to gain new followers for the client. For example, if I’ve charged for 3 hours of work but I only spent 2 hours Twittering during the week then I’ll use the extra hour on Friday to seek out relevant new people to follow, etc. This seems to work for clients.
I’ve recently started offering writing packages that include social bookmarking so I am wrapping it up in my price. I had one client project offer a few dollars per group of 5 links but it got difficult. Although you can spread it around through several social marketing services and multiple accounts, you don’t want to alienate any of your “followers” and be a spitter (spam-twitter-er).
If I do have a client that I need to social bookmark for I make sure I’m still doing a low ratio of paid tweets/bookmarks vs. my regular activities.
As of now, I’m a complete newbie at this writing biz… so I’m not sure if this idea is feasible:
Twitter is more about getting the message across in the least amount of words… so I guess I’d charge “inversely” proportional to the number of characters used. If I get the message across in one single character… $1500
if I get it across in 140, maybe $0.5 would be enough.
Paid twittering is not something I have done as yet but I do agree with the other comments here that I would charge a flat fee for this sort of work. Social bookmarking services is not something I have thought about either, so thanks Dana for that one.
I add Twitter in to a package “social networking” deal and, as Kathryn said, determine the hourly cost involved. Because Twitter involves building relationships, interacting, and building a following, I find it impossible to charge per Tweet.
Tweeting has become a recent request of writers. I tend to go with a flat fee based on how many “tweets” and the time required. Although only 140 characters, Twittering can be viewed as short-form writing.
Interesting question. I would devote a certain amount of time to twittering for the client with some minimums for posting. Some posts should be informal and quick to write but you would also have to spend time finding new links to share and responding to @replies and direct messages. Plus you could also use the time to find new followers in the niche and decide who to follow back.