Pay with a Tweet (or other social payments) in the Freemium world
-
Hi Mozer(s),
I work for a company which provides cloud-based collaboration environments for companies. Like many companies in this field, we offer a Free package, which gives users enough capabilities to explore our tool under business-alike circumstances.
However, we currently dont have a time limit for our free version - which, makes us (I think) quite unique from a competitive standpoint. But consequently, it also means a lot of users see no immediate need to upgrade to a business package.
If maintaining this business model, we are considering various options in how to generate more awareness. The company is quite new and can generally only get better results of SEO and social media advancement.
One alternative is to start charging for signup to the Free package, using Social payments scheme, i.e. get access to the collaboration tools for free if liking, tweeting, plusing us, using a pre-defined message, hashtag, etc, using a hybrid approach, allowing users to edit some/all of the message.
It may have an impact on number of sign ups, but are there other potential negative effects? I have seen some comments, both positive and negative, about its SEO impact, mostly positive, not least from this [Youmoz post](How To: Win Tweets and Influence Search Engines with PayWithaTweet).- though unlikely to have a direct SEO effect, it can increase sharing, exposure and SERP presence. But any flip sides social payment users should be aware of?
Thanks in advance.
-
Thanks Jason for your kind reply. You are basically saying that we are not worse off - the decline is a mere adjustment to "reality" again. We have at least increased our potential awareness factor.
-
If your tool is beneficial to the average user, most people will not have a problem signing up for it at the cost of a like, tweet, or plus. Also, in terms of SEO, there should be no negative impact. The only thing that might end up being negative is the initial sign up which might spike your rankings, mainly because google might think you to be relevant to what is currently being discussed, and then a sharp decline. But that would be the only downside I could think of.
I hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Social Media & SEO
Hi Does anyone have any good articles or case studies on how SEO/Social compliment each other? I know the benefits, I just need something tangible to show management, which justifies me spending more time on it. I currently do a lot of onsite SEO, but I know we're missing the content marketing/social media aspect and it's something I want to push. Any help would be great 🙂 Becky
Social Media | | BeckyKey0 -
How do your direct social media to use another picture when the web site is shared?
I set up a web site to raise funds for my nephew(www.helpmatt.org) and social media randomly picks a picture on the share. Unfortunately this picture is from happier times and sends a different message than we would like to prospective contributors. Is there a way to set the picture that is used when this web site link is shared on social media? www.helpmatt.org
Social Media | | Ron_McCabe0 -
Are there plans for Moz to track social activity for LinkedIN Company Pages any time soon?
Currently only Facebook and Twitter can be tracked. My business focuses on B2B and I focus heavily on LinkedIN and would like to track activity from LinkedIN. Any plans?
Social Media | | Marketing-Maven1 -
Are Social Links on Home Page Good for SEO
Hi, I have removed the Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and G+ links from the top of our home page so as to try and stop users leaving the page. Is this bad for SEO? Thanks
Social Media | | Studio330 -
Crawling of Social data
Just a quick inquisitive question. Websites like Facebook and Twitter arent public, they obviously allow a page title and snippet of account info in search results. So how are is social metrics gathered as regards to Tweets or Shares or Likes etc. in crawling data gathering? Would this give some insite how best to share social media too?
Social Media | | xtopher660 -
Should URLs in tweets be spelled out or shortened?
For SEO purposes to get links, does it make any difference whether URLs are shortened? Do the search engines analyze key words in twitter URLs for relevance?
Social Media | | manintights280 -
Social Media Strategy and Tactics for sensitive counselling industry
With my business I had always intended kicking social media into gear much sooner but various other pressures put this back somewhat. Counselling is quite sensitive for a variety of reasons:- We want to disassociate ourselves from the masses of non- professional folksy type "advice" that dominates the net, People, particularly in the UK often do not talk about mental health issues nor would we always want people to if they had not protected their privacy enough. Key marketing messages such as "get the first class service you deserve" (in UK people are more likely to wait 6 months to be seen by a trainee with no choice of who they see or when they see it than pay for counselling, "there are no quick fixes for mental health and counselling can make a real difference to your life if you invest time, energy and cost into it" (in a market where read this 300 word article to never feel stressed again dominates) and "what help choosing the counsellor who is best suited to you" - are not the sort of thing many people are likely to "like" or share with friends. At the moment I am looking to focus on LinkedIn (for corporate work), Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. I have a blog which is going to be producing excellent daily content including people's positive experiences of counselling, comprehensive self help tips, counsellor advice etc. On Google+ and Facebook I am looking to autopublish some of the blog posts and there are probably some other channels I will autopublish to but I do not yet know which to go for. Initially I am going to do little else on Google+ to focus time and energy developing Facebook and Twitter. I am trying to achieve the following:- Social Legitimacy - having decent number of engaged fans will make us seem more legitimate in an industry where trust is important (only 14 FB likes so far is not a good start) Engaging with Potential Content Creators - Reaching out to people who have experienced mental health issues so that this content can be used to provide peer support to others and enable them to see benefits of counselling Creating relationships with people and organisations where we can cross promote each other's initiatives, potentially co-deliver services in the future (community counselling work etc) Bring traffic to my site that will potentially convert into counselling clients in several cities in the UK through both people finding Promote my content more widely than is happening with organic search, reach different audiences, engage with potential customers, generate links to quality content I create Develop the social infrastructure to be able to leverage it for future goals, whether promoting an article, raising awareness for good mental health initiatives (that may have no financial benefit to the business but will help people) etc. Sorry this is so long but any comments, ideas, suggested tactics etc would be appreciated.
Social Media | | LighthouseC0 -
Outsourcing social media optimization
Is it a good idea to outsource social media optimization or is it something that has to be done in-house? I understand the question is kind of vague, but what I had in mind was to have an offshore contractor post daily about individual products and try to increase our following on twitter/facebook (i.e "social footprint").
Social Media | | inhouseseo0