Twitter's Million Dollar Gift

On Friday, Sean Stannard-Stockton reported that Twitter had made a number of well-known social entrepreneurs "suggested users" when new people sign up for the micro-messaging service. It may seem crazy, but I might even go so far as to say that this is a more valuable "donation" from Twitter to these social innovators than if the company had donated a straight cash $1,000,000.

Before you holler that I'm crazy, let me make my argument.

First, the idea that the "suggested user" spot is extraordinarily valuable is not new. Twitter has grown like crazy. Last year it grew 422%, for a while at the beginning of the year it was growing over 1300%. It's now seeming to have peaked in terms of growth rate, but is still getting bigger. As those new people come online, they get invited to follow "suggested users," some 350 supposedly interesting people. Many of them are celebrities.

The New York Times wrote this summer about the extraordinary power that "suggested users" command, sparked in part by Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis' offer to pay $250,000 for a place on the list. In his estimation, the placement would eventually net him 2-3 million followers, and would be an incredible marketing channel for his business.

I think a place on that list is worth even more than that $250,000. Since Friday, the new social innovation addees to the list such as FORGE founder Kjerstin Erickson (@kjer) and the Acumen Fund (@acumenfund) have added an average of about 15,000 new users each. At that pace, they'll be adding 50,000-100,000 new followers per week. Pretty soon, they'll be at 250,000 followers, then 500,000, then...

The question is, what's the value of a follower? There are some limiting factors. Many people sign up for Twitter but then never use it. On the flip side, some people follow so many others that it's unlikely that a tweet from one of these "suggested" social entrepreneurs would ever actually be seen. TechCrunch, a tech blog that became a suggested user earlier in the year actually compared traffic to demonstrate how much less valuable a follower was if they found the nonprofit through the suggested user section vs. a follower that was organically generated.

I wonder how different this might be for a nonprofit vs. a blog like TechCrunch. Nonprofits are in the business of inspiring and compelling donations, volunteerism, or other gifts. For a lay user who just joined Twitter, coming across someone like Kjerstin Erickson who can give them interesting things to read and meaningful things to do might be a far more compelling hook into the site than a site promoting its own written material.

What this does, effectively is put the power of distribution directly in these social entrepreneurs hands. It's not a guarantee how they can convert it - it takes a lot more than an "in" to push someone to action, but it creates an incredible channel. It may not be worth a million dollars, but then again, the power of distribution and the self-control this would give nonprofits just might be.

What do other nonprofits think? A million bucks or becoming a Twitter suggested user. What would you take and why?

(Photo: respres)