I recently read a RWW article entitled Why Twitter May Have the Edge in Online Ads and while I like the folks at the publication, I disagree.

I don’t think Twitter or Facebook in their current forms are great ad models. The deals they’re striking with brands don’t directly benefit the influencers driving traffic to the page. What I mean is that those who think great thoughts, aren’t getting paid to keep doing it.

At this point, neither Twitter nor Facebook directly share revenue with the influencers / individual page admins who drive traffic. And honestly, brands are paying for that targeted reach, not for distribution on a service full of nobodies. While this all may change in the future, there’s a disconnect between who is creating the value and who is making money. You know who could have a real edge on social marketing? Google +.

THAT MADE YOU LAUGH
You laugh, probably because you think it’s a late player with fewer users, but Google Plus is one of the only platforms with a backend infrastructure that could allow for revenue share with power influencers. I’m speaking of course about Google Ad Sense. If Google+ turned on AdSense and let users embed ad tags, social influencers could get paid while maintaining their editorial voice. AdSense could do turnkey monetization for the newbies, and premium networks could broker for those who want a more lucrative cross-platform game with AdSense backfill. Google and the networks would do the business development, and the influencer quits their day job to concentrate on their area of expertise as an independent.

What so many of us forget here is that the goal of a content network isn’t to make a money grab against crowd sourced impressions, it’s to aspire to a better web. To me, that’s not an ad-free environment, but a targeted one where ads feel like services rather than noise. And let’s be honest, expert content is still king.

THE REAL STAKEHOLDERS IN A CONTENT NETWORK
If the world of content monetization turns out like I think it will, expert curators and cool hunters will get smart and get paid. This is the winning combination:
1. Influencers earn revenue to maintain their trusted opinions;
2. Brands respect those opinions and pay to create or associate with (not massage) great content; and,
3. The user sees relevant posts and offers side-by-side in a non-icky state.