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?