Twitter launches ‘Promoted Tweets’ advertising model
Twitter is launching ‘Promoted Tweets’, allowing advertisers to write Tweets which appear at the top of results when users search for a particular word.
The micro-blogging site said that it is launching the first phase of Promoted Tweets with a handful of advertising partners including Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America.
In a blog post this morning, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said: “You will start to see Tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages. We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you.
“We’ll attempt to measure whether the Tweets resonate with users and stop showing Promoted Tweets that don’t resonate. Promoted Tweets will be clearly labeled as “promoted” when an advertiser is paying, but in every other respect they will first exist as regular Tweets and will be organically sent to the timelines of those who follow a brand. Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favouriting. Only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page.”
He added: “Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you.”
Stone said that there is a big difference between a normal Tweet and a Promoted Tweet. “Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar – they must resonate with users. That means if users don’t interact with a Promoted Tweet to allow us to know that the Promoted Tweet is resonating with them, such as replying to it, favouriting it, or Retweeting it, the Promoted Tweet will disappear.”
The most recent UKOM data, for February 2010, shows that Twitter.com had around 3.7 million users during the month, down 12.5% on January.
The UKOM figures, available on MediaTel’s new online database, show comprehensive traffic data for over 10,000 sites, including unique audience, active reach and gender profile.