How to Plug In A Real-Time Revenue Stream Today

So you’ve got your blog set up to generate revenue? – Check.

Sales pages in stellar condition and copy converting for you? – Check.

Advertising and content based promotion working for you (push AND pull)? – Gotcha.

Okay.

So where does an agile internet entrepreneur turn to find yet another platform to peddle their wares, so to speak?

Well okay – how about the Real Time crazy we’ve all been hearing so much about.

We’re all taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook and so on – so what’s new under the sun here you say?

The thing is… in order to make payments, you still need to take people away from where they like to roam… which today is undeniably Twitter.

To get around this seemingly issue, let’s take a look at a service called TwitPay.

Now, you may justifiably be thinking: “what’s new about that, I’m already tweeting my product launches, content, everything”?

That was my first thought too, so let’s take a closer look!

Here’s what TwitPay does for you:

• Send money to anyone on Twitter – PayPal works in the background (format: @friend twitpay $3 coffee’s on me today)
  (before you try this, you need to follow Twitpay first and wait for them to follow you back)
• Sell digital content directly from Twitter – PDF, MP3, OGG and WAV are the formats currently supported
• Run brand promotions on Twitter (this one seems to be still in beta or Early Access program as they put it)
• Raise money for charity through retweets (this too seems to be in limited access still)

So what are some of the possible practical uses for TwitPay? Here’s a few you might run into:

• Butter up a blogger or Twitter pal whose content you really appreciate, 5-10 dollars is okay (how do you think THAT will stick in their minds about you, instead of a simple retweet!)
• Get the attention of a high profile person by tweeting them your appreciation (did DM’s ever work for this, anyway?)
  
• Thank an employee, business partner or joint venture partner (or several) for a job well done: “@ev twitpay $5 because Twitter rocks”
  
• Send out affiliate commissions for an ad-hoc Twitter-only promotion you did (it could all happen within a DAY!)
• Sell a downloadable replay of a webinar you recently did – instead of going through the hassle of setting up a web page etc. just to be of service to your people
• Sell a quick downloadable report on something topical you know a lot about
• Ride on the coattails of the trends of the day – react quickly, create a product and sell it through Twitter… and you could have an avalanche of sales just because you delivered exactly what people wanted right then and there!)
• Put your old ebooks out for sale – people who never saw your original sales page may well go for it (format: “@vendor RT2Buy http://rt2b.me/xxx” OR simply retweet the original msg)
• Run special Twitter promotions of your own products – yeah, this is the really obvious thing to do.

Of course, there are some caveats or let’s say special considerations to think of, too:

• People generally don’t like to make their purchases or transactions public (how about an option to do it via DM?)
• Then again, in some cases being public about it is a plus: charity causes and products people are “proud to buy“
• Your PayPal address doesn’t get exposed, as TwitPay acts as the middle man
• TwitPay takes a somewhat hefty 15% off the top (for RT2Buy) then again maybe it’s worth the sheer ease of selling
• You may have to deal with manual settlings somewhat – so perhaps it’s not for mass sales unless you have an assistant looking after it

TwitPay is taking advantage of PayPal’s new Platform, it is one of the first to do so, paving the way for many more innovative payment solutions to come (you can be certain ProfitHacker will report on all significant payment innovations!).

If you ask me, TwitPay is the first symptom (not sure if they’d like me calling them a symptom, but oh well..) in a move towards an even more accelerated cycle of sales: you can go from spotting a need to product to sales within a single day!

So there you have it – a way to generate quick, impulse buys through just retweeting – Paypal working in the background for you (which is genius really!)

You’re essentially delivering bite-sized content to the masses; micropayments finally make sense, hurray!

If you liked this post and the possibilities ahead it may have opened for you, follow TwitPay first, wait for their follow back, then go ahead and tweet me a latte!

Tagged as: paypal, realtime, twitpay, twitter