Recent  announcements from Twitter have created tangible buzz among marketing experts and social media thought leaders. What started with updates to Twitter's homepage and search functionality, has resulted in the launch of a new advertising model that Twitter believes  will provide scalable and sustainable revenue growth. Their first offering, Promoted Tweets, allows marketers to buy keywords (for now on a CPM basis) and have their ads show up at the top of Twitter searches as sponsored tweets (see the Starbucks example). Highlights of Promoted Tweets:
  • Initially, ads will appear only on searches conducted on Twitter.com. (includes the sidebar search box)
  • Searches conducted on Search.twitter.com will not contain during the inital launch.
  • Only one single ad will appear at the top of a search.
  • The "ads" are actual tweets, and users can "re-tweet" the ad, make the ad a favorite or even  reply to it.
  • Ads will be clearly labeled as 'promoted' content
Promoted Tweets should quickly gain attention from advertisers looking to test and explore other options for driving targeted and relevant visitors to their site. For now, Google may have gained a new competitor for their flagship Adwords platform. Starbucks, Bravo, and Virgina America are the first advertisers to test Promoted Tweets.
  • Will this be a viable tactic that generates ROI...stay tuned for results?
  • Will your company evaluate or test Promoted Tweets in the next 3 months?
Please share your thoughts and comments.