What Is Your Twitter Following Worth?

$1000?... $10,000? We all know how important it is to be active on social media sites, but what is your Twitter following worth? How do you even find that information?

Malcolm Diggs started a website, Paid $ocial, that "compares the aspects of an account, such as the number of followers and the age of the account", to value your twitter handle. They also compare your stats to the Twitter records of similar account sales.

Another useful site is HubSpot's Tweet Grader. Along with a grade score up to 100, HubSpot includes your rank in the Twitterverse, account summary, as well as tips and suggestions.

So what you end up with is a value estimation. Awesome! You have a figure or grade... now what do you do with it? Numbers are fantastic but what do they mean?

You might not be interested in selling your account for money (especially if you plan on keeping your company) but it may help you place yourself in the industry.

Your Twitter Following is Worth More Than Money

It's great to know your account's monetary value, but it's more important to know the intangible worth first. How many people follow you, retweet you, and click through links in your tweets? These numbers are a great way to track ROI and see how your efforts are being received.

Past your numbers, you have a captivated audience to share anything you want. A qualified niche of people relevant to your industry chose to follow you. This may be the most important part of your Twitter value. It's extremely hard to put numbers to that audience, but Paid $ocial may have found a close way to estimate.

What Your Monetary Worth Can Tell You

After examining your Twitter reach, it's definitely helpful to see your value on Paid $ocial. By combining the monetary and non-monetary values of your Twitter account, you'll be able to get a better idea of your total value.

If you aren't happy with your value based on Paid $ocial's calculations, try improving your site, and getting more followers. You have a starting point to base your efforts off of. See what's working and try to increase your value even more. Values will, of course, depend on your company size and followers. So don't expect to have a huge value if you're a new, small company.

HubSpot's Tweet Grader will rank you based on their standards- which is a pretty good measure. So you get a grade from HubSpot, what will you do with it? If you feel that you could do better, again, you know your starting point. If you know what you have to do to improve your account, then go for it, but if you are confused why you don't rank higher, check the tips and suggestions section. HubSpot gives you free advice to improve your account. How useful!

So let's check out real life examples. Taylor Swift's account is worth $18,015,893.61 and has a grade of 100. WOW! And IMPACT has a value of $9,759.75, received a grade of 100! There's always room for improvement, more followers and tweets will increase our value.

How to Use This to Your Advantage

So you know your monetary value and your non-monetary value, and you know how you want to improve. But there's also one other point to consider. Check out your competitor's value and compare it with yours. Check out what they're doing and see if you're doing it better. You know the benefits of your company over theirs already, but a value will give you an outsider's point of view. Use this to your advantage and become the best in your industry!

Photo Credit: Empower Network