Twitter Now Has "Promoted Tweets"

"Twitter launched its Promoted Tweets service, which allows advertisers to buy sponsored links on the social networking site, on April 13. Marketers including Starbucks, Best Buy and Virgin America signed up to use the service at its launch.

Twitter created the technology to display the ads based on consumer acceptance. If a Promoted Tweet "resonates with users," it will appear in a Twitter search, according to the company.

A Twitter blog post explained that the ads will appear at the top of some search results pages.

"We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you," Twitter founder Biz Stone said in a company blog post. "We'll attempt to measure whether the Tweets resonate with users and stop showing Promoted Tweets that don't resonate."

But not everyone is convinced of its significance.

In a post on social media expert Mike Moran's blog, fellow industry observer Frank Reed said, "Twitter assures us that it will be stressing relevance of ads. Well, Google did the same for AdWords and that is still a work in progress. By the way... Twitter is no Google."

Among Virgin America's initial Promoted Tweets is an ad called "Send us your best geek moment," which encourages consumers to share photos of themselves using technology in-flight.

The ad was inspired by a conversation Virgin America customers had about the iPad launch. Porter Gale, VP of marketing at Virgin America, said that his company's goal is to improve customer engagement via Twitter.

"We're trying to use the Promoted Tweets to enhance the conversation with our existing followers, and we are making sure that the conversations are relevant and feel authentic," said Gale.

Another Virgin America Promoted Tweet gave the first 500 consumers who followed @virginamerica a promotion code to book two-for-one flights during a part of April 13.

"The people that are following us want to fly us and want good deals, so we are rewarding our best customers for following us," Gale continued.

Virgin also plans to use Twitter to announce new destination airports. For a week, Virgin will use only Twitter to promote the new destination, before conducting digital and print marketing.

"We want to see how the buzz builds," said Gale." ~ Source: DMnews.com