Unpopular brands offered Twitter followers - for a price

by Elizabeth Clifford-Marsh, revolutionmagazine.com 03-Jul-09, 13:21

LONDON - Brands having trouble building a large base of followers on Twitter can now turn to Australian technology firm uSocial.net and pay for connections.

The firm, which values followers' worth to brands at US10c (6p) each, is selling packages of followers to brands ranging from 1000 to 100,000.

uSocial claims it finds users who will be interested in hearing from the brand by tracking Twitter and working out what users are interested in to match profiles. It then invites the users to begin to follow the brand, meaning on users interested in the brand will respond.

uSocial has offered similar packages for StumbleUpon and Digg in the past, and last year was slapped with a cease and desist order by Digg for devaluing their service by allow brands to pay for positive stories to appear higher in Digg's rankings. uSocial ignored the order.

Leon Hill, chief executive of uSocial, said the company has about 150 customers that had bought followers and had another 80-90 campaigns about to roll out, including marketing firms, bluechip companies and churches.