One of the most common questions I get asked when delivering my talks is.. How Do Twitter make their money? Well up until now they really have not been making a lot of money. They have raised approx $360m in funding which presumably will sustain their business whilst they develop their products.

Well, it finally looks like they have now got their act together and are rolling out their suite of money making products. These include Promoted Tweets which are a new form of advertising unique to Twitter that enable you to speak to users that don’t currently follow your account.

Promoted Trends is the exclusive opportunity to feature a Trend related to your business at the top of this Trends list. When a user clicks on the Trend, they are taken to the conversation for that trend – with your Promoted Tweets pegged to the top of the timeline

Promoted Accounts are built to turbocharge your ability to gain new followers on Twitter. Whether you’re gearing up for a big product release or event, or just looking to expand your presence online, building a strong base of Twitter followers who will share your content and amplify your message makes all the difference.

My issue is with the pricing of these opportunities. The drop down box has a suggested monthly spend starting at $5,000 to $9,999. To me Twitter is a game changer for small businesses. Why I hear you say? Because if you go back a few years then the brands that won the marketing contest were those ones with the biggest pockets. Those companies could have more advertising, more billboards, more radio ads, more TV ads, more ads at the Superbowl and so on.

Twitter has changed things. Twitter gave small businesses the same opportunities as larger brands to reach their target audience. Now there is a platform where marketing spend did not come into things.  So lets take a closer look at their marketing opportunities.

To me it is solely geared towards big brands. The only promoted trends, promoted tweets and promoted accounts that I have seen have all been from large multinational corporates that can pay the huge fees that Twitter request. One of the things when using the pay per click for example with Google is that small businesses even with very modest marketing budgets can still be seen and can still create an impact.

I would really encourage Twitter to appeal all forms of advertising to small businesses. The big players have the budgets and the capabilities to spend vast amounts of money on marketing, something that small businesses simply don’t have. So come on Twitter please give the smaller businesses a level playing field. Give them the same opportunities to promote themselves to the possible widest audience they can with the modest budgets that they have.

@MarkShaw is an award winning ex sales guy that advises and trains businesses, and individuals on how to utilise Twitter to gain more business & to be effective with their time.  He is the author of the book Twitter Your Business & has been on radio, published in the media and given talks all throughout the UK in his capacity as a Twitter expert.