Companies can now pay to have their Tweets show up first in searches on the popular Web site Twitter. Twitter will profit from the project, titled “Promoted Tweets.”
The Promoted Tweet project launched on Tuesday and is in its practice phase.
Twitter’s advertising partners include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures and Starbucks, with more to come, according to a blog post on the company Web site. These companies will pay for this new advertising service.
“It’s non-traditional, it’s easy, and it makes a ton of sense for Twitter,” according to the same blog post. “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, favoriting it, or Retweeting it, the Promoted Tweet will disappear.”
When Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads, those ads will show up first in the search results.
Journalism professors agreed advertising on Twitter is the way of the future.
“That’s where people are. There’s been a mass exodus of the Internet generation from traditional media to the Internet and social networking. It suggests there’s a future in it,” said University journalism professor and Twitter user Harsha Gangadharbatla.
He said Twitter is using the search engine first because it is a less invasive place to test the waters for the new advertising tool.
Social media advertising is not new to the Internet.
“Advertisers are always trying to find ways to get messages to a lot of people, and new media properties need income to stay afloat, so in that way this isn’t that new,” University journalism professor Kim Sheehan wrote in an e-mail. “Any time a new type of medium is introduced, it tries to get involvement from audiences in a commercial-free way and then once audiences get hooked, they’ll introduce the advertisements.”
Tiffany Gallicano, another University journalism professor, said it is a new way for companies to communicate to their targeted audience.
“They can reach different parts of their audience in different areas,” she said.
Advertising company officials said they support Twitter’s new project and find that social media advertising is an effective tool.
“It allows companies to connect with their audience in a relevant and meaningful way to promote their message,” said Matthew Bowler, business partner at the Bend-based advertising company Roll 35.
But Eric Anderson, vice president of marketing at the Portland-based advertising company White Horse, has doubts.
“The program looks good from the outside,” Anderson said, but added, “It’s not clear how Twitter plans to integrate ads to users’ Twitter streams. Users may have a tough time with it.” White Horse’s clients include Wells Fargo and Nike.
Promoted Tweets are planned to enter the stream of regular Twitter posts later on.
Twitter.com launched in 2006. About 69 million people worldwide used Twitter last month, up from about 4 million at the end of 2008, according to comScore Inc. Twitter is valued at about $1 billion, according to investors.
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