A few weeks ago I started a Twitter campaign for a large B2B client and some of the feedback that came in was negative - not about the brand or the product, but about the ads. People were leaving negative mentions on Twitter and threatening to block or mark the company's Twitter account as spam. This made me laugh because it's not like Twitter ads are going away.
Then, another incident happened. Last week's article on how to claim your Google Plus custom URL for your business intrigued my friend Debbie Laskey, who looked into it further. She came back and pointed me to Google's terms of service, where it says that they reserve the right to charge you in the future for the custom URL. Say what?
Google doesn't seem like they need the money and frankly, as much as I love Google Plus, there isn't a chance in hell I'd pay for a custom URL. I don't think anyone would. I also don't think Google Plus is in any kind of position to charge for anything when they are still building equity in the Google Plus platform.
But what these two incidents made me realize is that we take social media for granted. We think it's going to be there and it's always going to be free. But sooner or later, will it all go "freemium" or will you have to pay to opt out of social ads? Or pay to have a custom URL? Seems like a genius long-term marketing plan. But the question I think that none of these social media giants have the answer to is: Would you engage in social media if you had to pay for any of it? And would you pay for features such as: no/limited ads, custom URLs, all-in-one desktop? Would love your thoughts on this.