Promoted Tweets: the latest social media campaign must-have?
Turning internet popularity into hard profit is the ultimate aim for online start-ups. So it’s not surprising that Twitter has finally come up with a way to monetise its service, currently used for free by businesses as well as individuals around the world.
Twitter is already a staple of social media campaigns, used to promote special offers, discounts and events to a brand or retailer’s followers. Now retailers can consider the benefits of paying to improve their visibility on Twitter through the new Promoted Tweet service, announced today on the Twitter blog by co-founder Biz Stone.
In essence Promoted Tweets are a paid-for service that place a tweet sponsored by the advertiser’s brand at the top of Twitter searches that include a term that the sponsor has paid for. Initially the Promoted Tweet will only come up in response to a search of Twitter, but the service is set to evolve as it’s used in the coming weeks and months.
The official announcement of the service came this morning and the first Promoted Tweets are likely to be seen this afternoon. Retailers including Starbucks and Best Buy are among the first corporate brands to take part.
Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone says Promoted Tweets will be different from advertising – since all the Promoted Tweets will already be “an organic part of Twitter”, rather than a pure sponsored message.
Stone’s blog continues: “This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment.”
Our view: What could a Promoted Tweet mean for my retail business? That’s the question that retailers with a leaning towards social media will be asking. Ultimately it’s something that will only become apparent as we see Promoted Tweets in action – and that’s something said retailers will be watching carefully. It’s likely that smart social media businesses can get the Twitter results they need without paying for it, but it’s also certain this is a development worth considering when the next social media campaign is put together.
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2 Comments »
Hi James,
There was always going to be some way of monetising the service: there has to be some kind of payback for the investment. The question for users will be whether this works for them. I suspect that in the same way as Spotify users don’t mind listening to an ad every now and then in order to access the music for free, so Twitter users may well be very laid back about this.
I’ll be interested to see how it works for the advertisers though, and it gives the kind of return on investment that they consider worth paying for. Certainly the launch advertisers are getting a great ROI, since so many people are talking about them – but will the everyday reality be worth it once the dust settles? And as yet you just can’t know till the dust settles and it all beds in.
Chloe
Hi Chloe,
An interesting and long awaited move by Twitter, inevitable given the high levels of investment they’ve had.
I like the fact they aren’t hijacking pages with annoying ads (which is what I find Facebook ads to be personally) but I’m yet to be convinced people on Twitter will be receptive to sponsored advertising. Twitter is an invaluable networking and info sharing tool for me as a freelancer and i’m happy to let them play around with a commercial model because I’m getting a great service free…as long as it doesn’t impede/confuse my conversations.
If you don’t test you never know so I will be interested to learn how this progresses.
What do you think of the move?
thanks
james