Living Organism

Last week, on April 13, there was constant buzz about Twitter’s introduction of their new advertising platform, Promoted Tweets. A handful of advertisers have already jumped on the bandwagon, some including Starbucks, Sony Pictures, Virgin America and Best Buy, testing the effectiveness of this new platform.

What exactly is “Promoted Tweets,” you may ask. Comparable to Google Adwords, which appears at the top of search results, Promoted Tweets employ that same concept and notion. Essentially, advertisers pay to have their “tweets” at the top of the stream during Twitter search results. The “Promoted Tweet” is identified by having a “Promoted by XYZ” on the bottom left-hand corner of the tweet, as well as yellow shading of the box when you hover a mouse over it. So, when you’re searching for electronic-related searches, for example, Best Buy may have their sponsored tweet on top of the real-time stream, offering promotional discounts and deals.

Promoting in 140 characters or less? Challenging? Yes, it could be, especially if your Promoted Tweet doesn’t make the cut. In measuring the Promoted Tweets, Twitter will give each ad a “resonance score.” To obtain a high resonance score, Twitter users must click on the link within the tweet, retweet the ad, or even follow the company promoting the tweet. However, if the Promoted Tweet doesn’t resonate well with users, the ad will disappear. Thus, the name of the game is creating promoted tweets interesting and compelling enough to generate clicks, be retweeted or gain followers.

After years of discussion about how Twitter will monetize its platform, this seems like just the right step. From a marketing and advertising standpoint, at first glance, it proves beneficial in controlling their intended message and brand positioning, with their tweet staying afloat amongst the sea of live stream tweets. By garnering interest in the tweet and company, they can engage and connect to their consumers, giving users a reason to follow, and potentially build brand loyalty.

With its first roll-out, Promoted Tweets are being displayed during Twitter searches. Slowly familiarizing users with this concept, Twitter plans on adding it to individual users’ personal streams. What this means is that the companies you follow that are using Promoted Tweets will have their ads stream alongside tweets from Matt, your husband, Karen, your coworker and the latest news from the NY Times.

Smart move? Only time will tell. Could Promoted Tweets backfire if they become too intrusive and spammy?

Are you using Promoted Tweets to connect to your audience? Are you responding to Promoted Tweets? Let us know what you think.