After years of speculation, Twitter has finally announced its plans to monetize through a new advertising platform within its framework. Beginning today, users will begin seeing paid listings at the top of certain Twitter search result pages, which will be known as “Promoted Tweets.”
Best Buy, Virgin America, and Starbucks are among the first brands signed on to use this new ad platform. It remains unclear, however, as to when Twitter plans to invite other potential advertisers to participate in the program.
At launch, “Promoted Tweets” will only be served to about 2-10% of Twitter’s population. But it’s likely that these ads will quickly expand to be served to all of Twitter’s users within a matter of months (maybe weeks).
So what are the Twitterati saying about Twitter’s new move? Nothin’ good. That’s for sure.
According to TwitterSentiment (a Twitter analysis tool), 50% of the tweets related to Promoted Tweets have been negative in nature thus far. Scanning through some of the comments, common trends seem to focus on speculation that Twitter plans to roll “Promoted Tweets” into every user’s Twitter stream, as opposed to confining these paid posts to the search results section.
My thoughts:
Twitter has been good to us for years now, and has never asked for anything in return. Like any company, however, it has investors who have shelled out some serious dough expecting to see a return on their faith in the service. ”Promoted Tweets” are the answer to keeping these investors happy, and in keeping our beloved Twitter alive.
Web users are naturally adverse to any sort of changes in their online world. But things do change, and the complainers eventually adjust. “Promoted Tweets” will be hard to swallow up-front, but will eventually benefit all of us who think in 140 characters.
Written by: Ryan Goff, @ryanatmgh
*UPDATED* 4:00PM EST, April 13, 2010
More details have surfaced regarding Twitter’s new advertising platform. Here are some highlights:
- Advertisers will bid for keywords, and the company with the highest bid will be displayed.
- Ads will receive placement based on advertisers’ bids and their “resonance” with Twitter users. This resonance score (similar to Google’s Quality Score) will be based off of the number of people who link, reply, or retweet the ad. If an ad receives a low resonance score, it will be removed and the advertiser will stop paying for its placement.
- Each search page will only feature one advertiser spot.
- This iteration of Twitter’s advertising platform is thought to be just the first phase in its overall monetization plan. It is likely that users will eventually receive ads based on the accounts that they follow. For example, if I follow a number of celebrity athletes, I may begin to see sponsored posts for Gatorade or Nike.
- Here’s a screenshot of the “Promoted Tweets” in action (courtesy of Mashable.com)
More to come as additional details pour in…
