When It Comes To Tweet Value, the Tech Star Beats the Hollywood Star

 

Fab.com, which encountered a few bumps when it launched as a gay social network, recently adopted a completely new business model and is now a daily sample sale site for home furnishings. They’ve picked up a few celebrity investors along the way, and recently turned to them to help spread the word about the site by offering a discount to their Twitter followers.

We’ve reported before on the rise of the contractually obligated tweet, and its increasing inclusion in celebrity endorsement deals, but how much are those tweets actually worth? Fab.com asked Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher and tech star (and Digg founder) Kevin Rose to offer their followers a $10 discount, and then they did something really strange: they released the financial results.

While we know that celebrities like Kim Kardashian can command thousands of dollars per tweet, we rarely hear about how much those expensive tweets actually bring in for the companies who buy them. In the case of Fab.com, it turns out that the most famous Twitter users aren’t necessarily providing the best value.

Ashton Kutcher has more than 7 million followers, while Kevin Rose has over 1 million. According to Klout, Kutcher is more influential than Rose with a score of 86 to Rose’s 78; and they put Kutcher’s “true reach” at 3 million to Rose’s 478,000. So, it might not be too surprising to learn that Kutcher’s links generated more signups (5,888) than Rose’s (4,356). {TechCrunch}

Here’s what is surprising: the people who signed up as a result of Rose’s links brought in more than 3x the revenue of those who signed up through Kutcher’s links.

Rose’s followers accounted for $7,121 in sales, while Kutcher’s only brought in $2,183. To make that more stark, each of Rose’s followers who signed up spent approximately $1.63 versus roughly $0.37 from each of the people who signed up as a result of Kutcher’s link. And, it seems Kevin Rose’s followers were more likely to share the link with other people.

Before we write off Kutcher’s followers, it’s worth pointing out that for a different promotion there may have been different results. If the goal were to get people visiting a movie trailer or buying a DVD, it’s quite possible that this is something that would appeal more to Kutcher’s followers than Rose’s.

Since advertisers rarely release this kind of information though, for now we’ll have to say that Hollywood star power can’t top Silicon Valley celebrity online.