June 21, 2010 by Andre
Last April, Twitter launched its first ad campaign facility, in the guise of Promoted Tweets. Tweeters are now accustomed to this facility, which provides advertising revenue in a different way to standard web advertising packages. Rather than flooding their platform with adverts, Twitter instead uses a more subtle method of generating revenue through promotional tweeting.
“Over the years, we’ve resisted introducing a traditional Web advertising model because we wanted to optimize for value before profit. The open exchange of information creates opportunities for individuals, organizations, and businesses alike. We recognized value in this exchange and planned to amplify it in a meaningful and relevant manner,” Twitter states.
In effect, Twitter is acknowledging that their facility is an ideal way of promoting specific products, but there are more effective ways of advertising with the site than simply presenting links to products. This week, Twitter commences the next phase of their advertising strategy, through the use of ‘Promoted Trending Topics’.
Promoting Trending Topics commence with a promotion for Disney Pixar’s latest film, Toy Story 3. The film is being advertised on the right hand toolbar of Twitter, and the ad is highlighted in yellow so it’s obvious that it is a Promoted Trending Topic. Clicking the link takes you to a search results page, which lets you see what people are tweeting about the new film.
Twitter has commented on the new advertising model: “As we have always said, we plan to test different advertising and promotional models in these early stages of our monetization efforts for both user and brand value. As part of this effort, we are testing trends clearly marked as “promoted” for an undefined period of time.”
So far, Promoted Trending Topics are not defined by location, but it’s easy to imagine that this will be the next step for Twitter’s advertising campaign – to establish topics of interest based upon the demographics, geography or interests of the Twitter user.
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