By Debbie Friez
The fastest growing social media platform, Twitter, announced on their blog this week they are adding advertising. As co-founder Biz Stone says, “It’s non-traditional.” They are calling them “promoted tweets” and they will only show-up at the top of certain searches, and they will be clearly marked.
What does this mean for advertisers? It’s a new opportunity, but very limited. Currently, Twitter has hand-picked the “partners” and they plan to roll it out slowly.
Communications professionals have latched-on to the free opportunities of Twitter, and may have more concern over the addition of ads. In a Q & A with Forbes.com on the Edelman Digital blog, Steve Rubel looks at potential impacts to communicators. Rubel comments the most surprising feature is the use of resonance to determine if they continue to use an ad.
IABC DC Metro president Shonali Burke, Shonali Burke Consulting, @shonali, shares the feelings of many communicators, "Twitter's got to make money somehow. Several Twitter-related services like UberTwitter, Tweetgrid, etc., have already incorporated advertising into their platforms, so I'm not sure why we should hold it against Twitter that they're trying to do so as well. What I think will make or break the promoted tweets program is whether these tweets will, as @Biz said, resonate with the users. That means companies thinking of using Twitter as just another platform to push out messages will probably be disappointed; because if they don't use Twitter to actually engage with their audience - which is the whole purpose of the medium - their 'promoted tweets' will not be picked up on... and there goes their advertising."
Stay tuned-Twitter promises more information to be announced at AdAge’s Digital conference and as they review the current offering.
Debbie Friez is vice president at BurrellesLuce