How much is one Twitter follower worth? In the race to be the best at monetizing social media applications many creative ideas are coming out of the woodwork. One of them, developed by the folks at TwitterCounter.com, is the concept of charging for featured, or sponsored advertising on a high traffic site.

In this case, TwitterCounter.com charges $499.00 for one week of “featured user” advertising. The featured spot allows a user to provide summary info, and several links to blogs, websites, and of course, their Twitter profile where you can add them to your account.

This week’s user, @RandomGoodStuff, currently has 576 followers (at least as of 9:45 am Central today). That is just under my current 586 that I’ve been building for several months. Of his 576 followers, there are approximately 238 new followers over the past week. Of course considering the featured profile on TwitterCounter.com, which brags 16,000 daily page views, one could well assume most of these new followers were the result of the featured ad.

It is also easy to assume that he may have received some of these followers just through chance, other media postings like this as well. However, let’s assume that all 238 followers were the result of his recent featured ad. From the TwitterCounter.com calculations I’m guessing he began his ad on February 1, which means it has only been four days. If the ad runs a full week he should be at around 756 followers by the end of the seven days.

Now of course there is the obvious analysis – He just paid $1.50 for each and every follower. That actually doesn’t sound too bad, if you’re talking strict marketing terms where you can monetize a return on investment. However, how much are each of his 756 followers really worth?  Bare with me here, as I think through a few ideas.

First, @RandomGoodStuff has been posting approximately 4 (four) tweets per day for almost a year. With 756 followers you’d think that anything Tweeted would get a pretty huge distribution but realistically here are the difficulties:

1. Followers often also have hundreds of their own people they follow – you are only just one of them. If someone following you has 700 followers, their chances of seeing your message are 1 in 700!
2. Followers are also not watching their Twitter accounts 24/7.  How many Tweets can you read in 10-20 minutes?
3. If every person who follows you reads only the first page or two of Tweets (20-40 Tweets), that reduces your “distribution” potential by 95% or more (you’d have to read more than 30 pages in order to read all of them!)
4. Not all followers are watching all Tweets equally! Many are using 3rd party applications such as TweetDeck, where you can filter your Tweeters into groups, some of which may get more attention than others.
5. I’ve noticed that only about 30-40% of my Twitter followers appear to be active (posting at least 1 Tweet per week or more). As with anything, you’ll have the few who use the tool ALWAYS, some who use it OFTEN, most who use it SOMETIMES, and several who use it RARELY.
6. A Tweet is only monetarily useful if you can create a call to action that generates a response. If your Tweets amount to nothing more than “I went to the video store today and got a way cool game!” how does one monetize that?

The point of this ranting analysis is that social media apps, particularly related to Twitter, have a long way to go in proving their worthiness. Today, Twitter is the rage and the next “must have” thing to do for businesses. But think about it this way – considering all the technological toys and gadgets built and sold for children today, why would anyone still try to market and sell wooden blocks? or baby dolls (of the non-talking variety)? or toy soldiers?

The point is, no matter what new toys the business world builds and distributes, in the end the “building blocks of business” are still the foundation of business success. Networking (however you do it) takes time, patience, and practice. The tools you use can help shorten the steps you need to take to develop those networks, but it doesn’t ultimately reduce the amount of time you have to spend marketing your business and getting the word out.

Twitter is useful as a business application because it provides you with a forum in which you can build viral excitement about your products and services in a way that appears less “marketing” and more “word of mouth”. The advantages can be huge, but the realities of building a business still hold.

Now, back to the exercise at hand here – for the $1.50 per follower @RandomGoodStuff has received, approximately, the following payout:

1. The feel-good of knowing that 756 people thought him worthy enough to add them to their Twitter accounts.
2. The peace of mind that comes with knowing you’ve been proactive in developing your business and building a network of folks that will be ready when your business takes off like gangbusters.
3. A hoped for return on investment when one of the 700+ somehow finds your website, purchases a product, or buys services from you.

If you think about it, what else is marketing really worth but for those three things anyway? Well okay, there is the whole money and wealth thing, but now we’re getting picky! As an investment, both in terms of time, money, and effort, Twitter is not the tool de force it is thought to be for everyone. For particular businesses, products and/or services it may well turn out to be the best thing since sliced bread but as with any marketing effort, you must choose your message, and the vehicle with which you distribute that message, wisely.

The bottom line – if you’re in it for money, Twitter isn’t necessarily the magic “must have” business tool you need.