Want To Advertise On Twitter with Promoted Tweets? Here Is The Skinny

by Jeremy Schoemaker on April 20, 2010 · 150 comments

Yesterday at the top of their business FAQ Twitter posted a quick walk through video about how Promoted Tweets work:


OK I’m excited…. I have money and a product how much does it cost?

Q. How much will it cost to promote Tweets? Will advertisers use a cost-per-click (CPC) model or something else?

A. We will use a simple impression-based pricing model until we, and our partners, can better understand the value of promoting Tweets. We haven’t decided on the right model going forward but we will be measuring multiple indicators of engagement such as Retweets, @replies, re-use of hashtags, avatar clicks, hashtag clicks, in-Tweet link clicks, views after Retweet and more. We call these collective indicators “Resonance” and believe that over time a pricing model based on Resonance will be better tuned to the actual value of promoting a Tweet than simple cost per click or dollars per friend, fan or follower models. We’ll know more after our initial launch and look forward to working with our advertising partners in refining our thinking around pricing and Resonance.

I have several contacts at twitter and none of them would give up a price anyone is currently paying but they all said the CPC price needed to back out to about $20 CPM. So depending on how hot the chick avatar was you promoted and what she said your price could drastically vary CPC.

So where do I sign up?

Q. How will companies use the platform? Where do I signup?

A. We are providing a self-serve dashboard to companies using Promoted Tweets. There will undoubtedly be some rough patches during the early going, so access to this dashboard will initially be limited to a handful of advertisers. As the tools become more robust, we will gradually open up the platform to other advertising partners.

Fluff filtered version: We have no clue what we are doing but we know big brand companies want to blow tons of money advertising with us. Right now we are only working with companies large enough they don’t care if they get a return or not. They just want to look cool being a part of twitter.

Users get the shaft:

Oh ya and I was right in my original assessment. Users of twitter… who actually create the content will receive 0% of the revenue if their tweet is chosen to be promoted. This is the first advertising model I can think of where the user who is creating 100% of the content being paid to advertise is getting zero percentage of the revenue.

Yes, thats right, you tree huggers, who said you would never sell your Tweets. Twitter is going to put your content up for auction and there is nothing you can do about it.

Ok but lets say I am Google and I am showing trending topics and allowing searches on twitter. Can I get paid?

Q. Will you syndicate these search ads to third parties?

A. Absolutely. We will syndicate Promoted Tweets to third parties in the Twitter ecosystem.

Q. Will third party apps be able to run and make money on these ads?

A. Yes.

So that’s interesting. Twitter is going to provide a search feed much like overture, infospace and the like…. This opens up all kinds of doors (and volume).

So whats the Shoestradamus prediction on the future of twitter advertising?

Well… Twitter is sitting on a MOUNTAIN of venture capital money and does not need to turn a profit anytime soon. As I alluded to above companies are swooning at the chance to throw money away to be a part of twitter in any way shape or form. We also saw a similar love affair with Facebook when it first started taking money for homepage buys.

Right now Twitter is in a very fortunate position. But its not going to last…. and when they do open up the flood gates… look out.

Lets say you were promoting ACAI Berries and bid on Oprah as a keyword. Then anytime someone searched for Oprah or if Oprah made it to a trending topic… well I don’t have to tell you how well that would probably work.

The earlier you can get in on this the better. Its going to be rough but much like every other advertising platform ever the people who got in early and found loop holes in the system did really… really well. But it will be a painfull learning curve.

About the author...

– who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.

Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.

Images provided by ShutterStock


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{ 150 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Geezam Tech Blog April 20, 2010 at 12:22 pm

*sob* video doesn’t work for me -_-

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2 Join ShoeMoneyX April 20, 2010 at 9:49 pm

I hope they fix the video. I want to watch it!

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3 georgeblanco April 20, 2010 at 12:35 pm

Always interesting to watch the changes taking place at Twitter. FYI – Link going to Vimeo is not working.

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4 Profit Addiction April 20, 2010 at 12:39 pm

I need to develop a product so I can bank some Twitter cashola

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5 Merle April 20, 2010 at 12:42 pm

We all knew the day would come when Twitter would turn to advertising for its revenue dollars. Who can blame them. With millions of users they needed to come up with a way to harness all that traffic to make a buck. I mean, isn’t that why any business is online. They’re not in the charity business. Personally, I have no problem with them inserting ads within my feeds or including them in my search results. Not a biggy in my book and for anyone else who loves Twitter it shouldn’t be to you either. Whey shouldn’t they turn a profit.

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6 California Dreamin April 20, 2010 at 12:49 pm

I am not sure I understand this. :( Can someone explain in simple terms? Does this mean that my general tweets about anything in general (my car, my new phone, the alcohol in my cocktail, my favorite song) can become public property and are up for grabs by big companies? Does it mean that they can grab my tweets and leverage them? Or does it mean that my tweets will be analyzed for advertising potential, and people will market to me based on that? I am soooo confused! Thank you.

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7 Jeremy Schoemaker April 20, 2010 at 4:51 pm

Yes lets say you wrote about how yummie KFC is and linked to their website. KFC can pay twitter to “Promote” your tweet in search and other listings.

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8 Wess Stewart April 20, 2010 at 8:01 pm

So…if your tweet gets promoted and you get nothing for it, what’s to stop you from simply deleting your tweet?

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9 S Ahsan April 20, 2010 at 11:11 pm

heh, this is actually the first time i came across a platform that wont pay to use your content.. either way, its going to be big.at the moment and may stick for a while but you never know. I dont know what adly and sponsored tweets would do :) .. And it is true that people and companies who know nothing about twitter still wants a piece of this pie.

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10 Gabby Dell from SC April 21, 2010 at 9:20 am

I’ve a Twitter account – and I’m not sure you can delete your tweet. As in I don’t think there’s a button for it. Once tweeted, a thing can no longer be untweeted.

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11 WhoSaysWhat01 April 21, 2010 at 11:59 pm

You probably haven’t tweeted a lot, huh? You can delete tweets actually. I should know, I do that all the time. lol

12 Jeremy Schoemaker April 21, 2010 at 3:41 pm

Thats actually a really good question…. I am guessing since the tweet is deleted it wont get shown and you wont get charged.

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13 Kathleen McGiveron May 11, 2010 at 1:40 pm

Gross. Who wants to use Twitter any more with this? Pff I should hope no one. Like why wouldn’t they at least dish like 10% to the writer or have like a Pay-Per-Post system… Users can sign up to write about companies and the companies can pick and choose who they want… less followers the cheaper it is…more followers more $$$…. Twitter takes most profit, user the lesser.

I think this will ultimately be the ice burg for twitter, that’s a bunch of you know what.

14 Chris Green | CouponSaver.org April 20, 2010 at 12:51 pm

Who are the companies / brands that are testing this out? Do you know?

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15 Jeremy Schoemaker April 20, 2010 at 4:53 pm

So far Starbucks, Blockbuster, and a few others… very big brands

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16 spameater April 20, 2010 at 9:03 pm

Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America, so far. They’re probably going to announce more brands later.

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17 tom April 20, 2010 at 12:55 pm

This will be fun

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18 Creative Marketer April 20, 2010 at 1:05 pm

I love the Shoemoney spin on this. “Fluff filtered version” LOL! I have to agree with the paragraph. Also, “Users get the shaft” Users do get the shaft. Good for Twitter though. I see a cash cow coming.

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19 Fiona Wong April 20, 2010 at 1:24 pm

Jeremy, the video’s not working. :(

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20 Get That Ball April 20, 2010 at 1:26 pm

Shoe, the screen in your post says “video no longer exists”. That was fast.

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21 Kyle April 20, 2010 at 1:32 pm

LOL @ non-fluff version of Twitter’s replies. I, for one, am curious to see how you can advertise something in 140 characters or less.

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22 Creative Marketer April 20, 2010 at 1:49 pm

If the advertiser’s clever enough, Kyle, you don’t need all that many characters. It’s all in the way you manage your resources. It’s difficult, but i can be done.

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23 Ivan Walsh April 20, 2010 at 8:49 pm

That’s a good point.

I guess, there’s now a business case for having a ‘premium’ version of Twitter, e.g. for Corps and power users who dont want to see these ads.

…and then sell it, I guess.

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24 enajyram00 April 20, 2010 at 10:28 pm

Actually you can advertise using a few words. And I for one like it better when ads are short and straight-forward. I think it’s more effective and it doesn’t distract consumers.

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25 Computing April 20, 2010 at 1:48 pm

They switched that video on you. Did they change their mind on something ?

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26 georgeblanco April 20, 2010 at 1:52 pm

Why do I get the feeling that this is going to come down around the heads of the people behind Twitter like a tower of playing cards? Shoe’s right – it’s almost like MLM – you can only make it big if you get in early and make the right choices on the keywords you bid on.

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27 veronica_sm April 20, 2010 at 1:54 pm

I know they’re only tapping companies large enough that they won’t really feel it of they don’t immediately get a direct return from their tweets, but really, has anyone at these large companies stopped to think if they’re getting anything at all? Other than a cool new way to spam people? I mean, if company X has a Twitter account, what difference does it make if they have a promoted tweet or a regular tweet, both of which go out to the people following your brand anyway?

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28 Bryan Jake T April 21, 2010 at 10:10 am

There is too a difference. Regular tweets are tweets that a company posts on its home page. Sponsored tweets are tweets that come from a celebrity or some other insanely popular person which the advertiser compensates them for. Promotional tweets are tweets made by regular people plus a tweet or two from the company itself which appear on feeds of people who follow the brand as well as in the search results of people who search for certain terms which the advertisers have chosen. It’s not the same content at all.

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29 NicMoon April 20, 2010 at 1:56 pm

I think I may have to go and read that again, but did he say ‘syndicate your content to third party search engines’??? Does this mean my tweets are no longer safe from prying eyes?

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30 ara600 April 20, 2010 at 8:23 pm

I don’t believe that they’d compromise a user’s privacy. After all, if users get disillusioned with them and stop using their services, they’ll go out of business.

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31 thoushallpass April 20, 2010 at 8:49 pm

Not to be rude, ara600, but it’s not as if a few ticked off people are going to bankrupt Twitter. Remember how Facebook users raised a fuss over its “insufficient” privacy settings and how it just blew over?

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32 WhateverWorks April 20, 2010 at 10:35 pm

I wouldn’t put it past them, Ara. Read Jeremy’s reply to a previous post here. If you post something that mentions a particular brand name, say Starbucks or KFC, the next time someone searches for the same brand name on Twitter, your post could appear as one of the results. So you’d still have to be relatively careful with what you post, if you have a brand name in it. Like, don’t mention you’re on a date with your best friend’s boyfriend at the local Starbucks.

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33 David R April 20, 2010 at 8:53 pm

Privacy online is an illusion, as FB founder Mark Zuckerberg has implied again and again. If there’s something you don’t want the world to know, then for goodness’ sake, don’t put it on the internet, especially not on a public forum!

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34 WhoSaysWhat01 April 20, 2010 at 11:19 pm

OMG I agree so much with this comment. There’s no such thing as privacy as in REAL privacy online. You can make your account private, but there are still people (and Twitter itself) who can access your account. I think that’s the problem with some people, they think they can trust the website but that’s not always the case. The sites can always sell the content that its users produce.

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35 GQmeansGeek April 21, 2010 at 7:12 am

Agreed 100%. As soon as you put it out on Twitter or Facebook or blogs, it’s public domain. Even if your account is private other people may have access to it.

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36 RedBlack88 April 21, 2010 at 8:14 pm

Speaking of Facebook and IP and privacy issues, have you guys seen the newest Facebook news? Again they scoff at personal space and privacy.

Zuckerberg says: “We’re building toward a web where the default is social. Every application and product will be redesigned from the ground up to use a person’s real identity and friends.”

Check it out here: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/21/facebook.changes.f8/

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37 georgeblanco April 21, 2010 at 10:16 pm

Now I have this irrational urge to delete my Facebook account.

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38 Kyle April 21, 2010 at 11:29 pm

This info gathering on the net feeds the Big Brother conspiracy theorists – they all believe that the people running the big search engines and marketing research firms know more about you and your buying patterns than you do.

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39 Lola Dee April 21, 2010 at 11:33 pm

And they could be right!

40 E. Langdon April 21, 2010 at 11:32 pm

This is great news for social media marketers. For the users… maybe not always as good.

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41 twitteraddict05 April 20, 2010 at 9:08 pm

I don’t think Twitter will go so far as to declare that the content that users display is the exclusive property of the company, like FB implied. That was what got people’s goats – that content posted belonged to FB and that even after it was taken down, the company implied that it might still be used.

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42 Scott Ayres April 20, 2010 at 2:10 pm

$20 per click? Don’t see how they will get a good ROI. I mean I bet a third of the twitter accounts on the site are spammers and profiles people setup automatically. So as a business why would I pay to send a tweet to that person?

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43 Jeremy Schoemaker April 20, 2010 at 4:50 pm

Not $20 per click but back out to a $20 CPM.

For example on Facebook you need to back out to about a 30 cent CPM if you want your ads to show.

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44 Wynne April 20, 2010 at 2:12 pm

If their video worked it might be something useful. I find their FAQ page pretty non-descript. I REALLY want to try this out, but when my promoted tweet is not allowed to be advertorial then what the heck am I supposed to do with it?

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45 Guy Cleveland April 20, 2010 at 2:46 pm

At last… The monetization of Twitter. Now it’s a race to see who can figure this out and really leverage it. Stay tuned. Things are going to get interesting.

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46 Chris Green April 20, 2010 at 9:12 pm

This can’t be good. It’s interesting to note that a Google’s success is largely attributed to the fact that they’ve managed to keep their syndicated feeds and their actual or organic results separate. Someone mentioned a tower of cards? This is more like a sinkhole.

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47 keith@Find Blog Ideas April 20, 2010 at 3:02 pm

It will be very interesting to see how this progress’ in the next few years and seeing how and if the affiliate marketing world will use it?

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48 Bill April 20, 2010 at 3:13 pm

Thanks for this no-fluff version. I hadn’t gotten to reading about it myself, so thanks for the little nudge.

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49 Nimit kashyap April 20, 2010 at 3:21 pm

I am little confused, can u pls share a working link of video if possible.

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50 Jona712 April 20, 2010 at 10:41 pm

I’m a little confused myself. Anyway somebody posted the link below. Here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l-ivcnLrSc&feature=player_embedded

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51 d3so April 20, 2010 at 5:28 pm

Thanks for the info. Sounds like this can be a costly venture but I’m sure it’ll have its benefits. I’m willing to give it a try, just need to figure what’s appropriate to promote.

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52 PyrogenicMedia April 20, 2010 at 7:28 pm

It is just crazy how Twitter really has no idea how their own platform is going to work. Now I mean, Everyone goes through this stage, Where they have a general idea of how they want things to run, and how it should turn out, but unlike Twitter, The rest of us don’t announce our new platform to the world when it’s still an “idea”.

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53 Dwhyz1 April 20, 2010 at 7:29 pm

The video isn’t working???

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54 Will April 20, 2010 at 8:29 pm

“Well… Twitter is sitting on a MOUNTAIN of venture capital money and does not need to turn a profit anytime soon. ”

The famous last words. They only need to make about 640 million to meet their liquidation preferences. How many years will that take?

“This is the first advertising model I can think of where the user who is creating 100% of the content being paid to advertise is getting zero percentage of the revenue.”

This is fairly foolish on their part, and I can’t imagine it lasting very long.

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55 WilmaP April 20, 2010 at 8:36 pm

The video is not there anymore. :( Anyway I figured out how it works last night after reading other blogs and comments, and I still don’t like it.

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56 moolahmachine April 20, 2010 at 9:16 pm

Vimeo isn’t working, but there’s a YouTube video of it. Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l-ivcnLrSc&feature=player_embedded

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57 MVZP_01 April 20, 2010 at 11:27 pm

Thanks for the link. I’m too lazy to read Shoe’s post.

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58 Yes2Freebies April 20, 2010 at 10:04 pm

I got to watch the 140-second tour video from the business FAQ since it doesn’t seem to be working on your blog. I kinda like the idea of searching for an event and finding relevant promoted tweets, so good job Twitter.

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59 The American Dream April 20, 2010 at 10:34 pm

Not a big fan of twitter, but I do have an account. I haven’t posted in a while though. Anyway, I see potential in these sponsored tweets. Many users tweet about products, and sometimes they’re not even that conscious about it. But I’m not so sure if people will be happy about this. The users won’t be getting any money even if the advertisers will be getting tweets/content from them.

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60 TomYoon April 20, 2010 at 10:35 pm

Is there any way to watch the video? It’s been removed.

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61 moolahmachine April 20, 2010 at 10:40 pm
62 TomYoon April 21, 2010 at 12:47 am

Thanks a lot.

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63 TomYoon April 21, 2010 at 12:47 am

Thanks a lot

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64 TomYoon April 21, 2010 at 12:48 am

Thanx a lot

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65 KrisM77 April 20, 2010 at 10:39 pm

Is it legal to use people’s personal tweets for advertisement? Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s how I understood this whole thing. personal tweets that mention brands and names or whatever would be used by advertisers as sponsored tweets, right? Or maybe I’m wrong. Anyone mind explaining it?

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66 Runs With Scissors April 20, 2010 at 11:18 pm

I don’t see how that’s possible – I mean, how do they make money out of content that isn’t technically “theirs”? Otherwise Twitter would have to pay its users, right?

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67 Robin Sterling April 21, 2010 at 12:52 am

That’s the issue. Although in my opinion it’s not really an issue. Once you use any social media site, Facebook, Twitter, etc., you have to expect some of your content will be used by advertisers. That’s how social media sites make money. In my opinion if you don’t want your tweet to be used by advertisers then you should stop using Twitter. As for me, I’ll be careful naming any brands in my tweets from now on. Maybe I’ll just refer to Starbucks as SB or Barstucks on Twitter.

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68 spoonpants April 20, 2010 at 10:45 pm

Twitter seems so very confusing at the moment while everyone tries to figure out how to make some money out of a fairly untested advertising medium

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69 ExclaimedIdeas April 20, 2010 at 11:46 pm

I’m not sure that a smaller company like mine could benefit from promotional tweets. We’re not large enough to merit searches yet. This idea Twitter has, it’s more of a “toys for the big boys” thing.

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70 SmallBiz Sue April 21, 2010 at 1:35 am

Agreed. I hope Twitter develops a way for small businesses to advertise too. This seems to target well-known, established companies.

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71 Farzad H. April 21, 2010 at 7:22 am

ExclaimedIdeas, not that it matters. I don’t think the “big boys” will gain anything anyway.

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72 Ethan April 20, 2010 at 11:51 pm

Twitter ads on feed? I can’t imagine that a lot of people would like that. Maybe they’ll become like LiveJournal, which started charging people for accounts that kept ads out.

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73 Sanjay April 21, 2010 at 12:15 am

Now that’s an idea. Get advertisers to pay to spam the feeds of users and users to pay to block the same from their feeds. A little Art of War going on here. Sow dissent and get them to fight amongst themselves.

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74 AnnieP78 April 21, 2010 at 12:18 am

Not really feed, but search feed I guess. I often search various topics on twitter just to see what people are saying about it. I think what will happen once they implement sponsored ads is that there will be sponsored tweets that will appear on top of searches. Like, if I search “Glee”, and then maybe a tweet like “Starbucks is giving away Glee DVDS for free” will appear first on the search results. Sth like that.

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75 TheSandMan5050 April 21, 2010 at 12:58 am

don’t think so. lj and twitter aren’t even offering the same kind of service. One’s a blog/writing site, the other’s all about networking and microblogging.

anyway I swear I could think of a better argument in the morning.

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76 Cristina Dy April 21, 2010 at 12:13 am

Ohh so that’s how it is. This is a pretty good advertising idea by Twitter.

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77 Husher50 April 21, 2010 at 12:46 am

Haha I enjoyed reading your fluff filtered version. Good post, Shoe!

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78 WanderingMommy April 21, 2010 at 12:55 am

My question is, will twitterers (is that how they call them?) be affected by sponsored ads? Will it bother them? I don’t think so. But that’s just me, since I don’t use twitter often. I just check it for friends’ updates.

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79 newmediaist12 April 21, 2010 at 7:06 am

It would probably bother people at first. Heck, I’m bothered by the thought that companies could use my tweets. But if you think about it, that’s usually the initial reaction. As time goes and as Twitter improves its sponsored tweets system I think people will get used to it. BUt I hope there’s a way for people to reject companies from accessing their tweets.

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80 NicMoon April 21, 2010 at 7:29 am

Let’s hope they polish up their system really fast. A lot of people don’t have the patience for them to get their act together and will be turned off of Twitter before you can say lickety-split.

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81 Susan Armand April 21, 2010 at 8:51 am

I think they might have planned this better than it seems. For one thing, the idea of “resonance” is quite intriguing. It brings a whole new element into play, and it’s something only the people at Twitter know how to measure.

I believe that this could be a prototype that might be improved upon, and might even change how things are done re: internet advertising.

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82 Alamin April 21, 2010 at 1:09 am

Very nice post. It will help me a lot. I just bookmark it.thanks

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83 Alamin April 21, 2010 at 1:10 am

Very nice post. It will help me a lot. I just bookmark it. Thanks you very much

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84 AnnieLouJ12860 April 21, 2010 at 1:32 am

Kind of excited about this development. I’m expecting a lot of twitter users will go wtf? once they find out twitter will be using their content for ads, but I’m also excited about the opportunity and possibility of improving this later.

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85 RedBlack88 April 21, 2010 at 7:17 am

I’m sure that a lot of them will be more than just exclaiming over it – some are going to get downright pissed. Did nobody learn anything from the whole privacy fiasco that Facebook had to go through?

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86 Get That Ball April 21, 2010 at 9:04 am

Apparently not, if they’re still counting on organic tweets to become advertising fodder.

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87 Tammyexperiments April 21, 2010 at 9:16 am

I don’t think there’ll be a big angry mob scenario like there was with the Facebook issue. Twitter’s content is hardly as confidential as the stuff people put on their FB profile pages.

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88 FirenzeZ April 21, 2010 at 7:54 am

A lot of people will not care, that’s what I expect. IMO most active Twitter users belong in the 13-20 age bracket, and most of those people don’t really care about marketing and advertising news. I mean, these are the people who are behind trending topics. (Justin Bieber, anyone?) I just can’t imagine these people caring.

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89 WhoisDoyle April 21, 2010 at 1:55 am

Interesting. I wish there were travel brands/companies that would try this out.

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90 The American Dream April 21, 2010 at 11:36 pm

There may be, soon. Depends on the success of the system.

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91 Get Your Ex Back April 21, 2010 at 3:36 am

Not sure why…

But the video doesn’t work

Ev.

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92 CharlieHash April 21, 2010 at 5:42 am

Video was not working, but, thanks for this information…

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93 Bert Deckers April 21, 2010 at 6:24 am

It’s kind of a “free testimonial machine” for the big boys who want to stay in sight. It looks like it’s intended for long term advertising and leverage of interactive, user generated content that will in turn gain trust and credibility for the advertiser (if the algorithm to select tweets to sponsor is programmed the right way). People who want to use this for direct response marketing will need to be very creative to monetize it. I could come up with a few Ideas of why it’s genious, but than again some things just don’t make sense. The user gets used…

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94 joonlee97 April 21, 2010 at 7:18 am

Is it just me or is the statement “we haven’t decided on the right model going forward” not a very good sign coming from the people launching the product?

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95 BigMoneyBrooklyn April 21, 2010 at 7:19 am

Basically, what Twitter’s saying is “we’re launching our own platform, but we have no idea how it works”. This is going to make for some fun times, indeed.

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96 AL0101 April 21, 2010 at 7:29 am

It’s their first ad platform after all. If it all fails the first time there’s nowhere to go but up. I personally think it has potential, as Jeremy pointed out. But it will take time.

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97 Hollaback Will April 21, 2010 at 7:20 am

Click through the YouTube related videos to find out what most people are saying. I’m surprised that some people are positive about this!

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98 James Is (Not Working) April 21, 2010 at 7:26 am

Well, there’s really no reason to feel negatively about it – if you’re a user you’re not going to get spammed by people you’re not following anyway, and if you’re an advertiser it’s worth looking into. Twitter may not get a windfall from this – maybe not now and maybe not ever, but it’s a step in the right direction.

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99 Not The Real Shoe April 21, 2010 at 8:55 pm

Not a very firm step, if you ask me. They couldn’t wait to launch, and now they’re running around half-cocked.

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100 sasha_482 April 21, 2010 at 7:25 am

This gets more and more interesting the more I think about it. Twitter could be capitalizing on the thrill a person gets when seeing that something they wrote gets posted and sent to a wider audience than they ever thought possible. The example on the YouTube video is a good one – an upcoming concert and hundreds of people wanting to tweet about it even without the promise of getting something in return. I bet people will fall all over themselves trying to come up with something witty or unique to say to be the tweet picked to go live on an advertiser’s feed and appear in a search engine result.

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101 Yes2Freebies April 21, 2010 at 7:44 am

Exactly. I think promotional tweets would be more effective in events, concerts, announcements, etc. rather than products or services. Because not a lot of people search about products on twitter. People search about people, shows, and events often, not products. There’s google and yahoo for that. Oh and I also search for free stuff on Twitter.

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102 F2Xsites April 21, 2010 at 7:26 am

Eep time to get off Twitter! lol kidding. I’ll see how this turns out first, and if I don’t like it I’ll jump to plurk.com.

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103 Mark Mead April 21, 2010 at 7:59 am

I’m with Shoe on this. It might be a slow start, but the potential for great things is there. I don’t even have a Twitter account, and now I want one, just to see how things shape up.

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104 Guy Cleveland April 21, 2010 at 9:10 am

I’m with you. Signing up for Twitter tonight!

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105 internetFTW April 21, 2010 at 8:14 am

Hmm I’m okay with this. I guess twitter won’t start spamming my feed with ads.

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106 GoHarryGo April 21, 2010 at 9:12 am

Nope, you’ll only get content from brands you already follow, and from searches.

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107 Lola Dee April 21, 2010 at 9:13 am

For the user, by the user, searched for by the user, you say? What could be wrong with this? Oh, yeah, the money part’s still confusing, but for the people tweeting, it’s a win-win situation.

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108 internetFTW April 21, 2010 at 11:33 pm

Yes, that’s what I figured. And it’s pretty much harmless even if I use twitter search. I think twitter said something on their FAQ that says there’s only one promoted tweet per search. There can’t be two or more tweets that will appear on top of the search results. Sounds good to me.

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109 Jona712 April 22, 2010 at 12:53 am

Oh really? I thought they would start posting ads on feeds like real ads. Obviously I didnt understand the video, lol. But that’s good to hear tho, seriously. I won’t mind promo tweets if that’s the case.

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110 Susan Armand April 21, 2010 at 8:59 am

I think they might have planned this better than it seems. For one thing, the idea of “resonance” is quite intriguing. It brings a whole new element into play, and it’s something only the people at Twitter know how to measure. I believe that this could be a prototype that might be improved upon, and might even change how things are done re: internet advertising.

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111 California Dreamin April 21, 2010 at 9:01 am

Making use of organic content as advertising copy is a very novel take on things. It has potential, indeed.

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112 Fiona Wong April 21, 2010 at 9:09 am

Prosumerism at its finest. Does anyone else feel like the lines between being treated like sheep and being made into cash cows are blurring?

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113 Andrew Says So April 21, 2010 at 9:07 am

I dunno. The idea seems to be a bit half-baked to me. But I’m keeping an open mind.

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114 Yes2Freebies April 21, 2010 at 11:21 pm

Absolutely. That’s what I’ve been saying! It has a lot of potential.

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115 Jason S. April 21, 2010 at 9:05 am

What’s wrong with all the haters these days? This is a great thing! Time to go on Twitter!

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116 Mining Distributors April 21, 2010 at 9:27 am

This is an awesome new concept. Btw, your video is not showing up.

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117 AffiliatePaying April 21, 2010 at 9:38 am

This video no longer exists!

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118 Chris - Trucking Schools USA April 21, 2010 at 12:23 pm

Anyone on here really seeing a lot of gains from buying sponsored tweets? Really a lot of qualified traffic or just basic traffic? Thanks.

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119 fas April 21, 2010 at 2:56 pm

Shoe, the video no longer works.

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120 GQmeansGeek April 21, 2010 at 11:19 pm

What are you talking about? It works okay. Check again.

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121 auctioner April 21, 2010 at 3:28 pm

have seen a bit before of the video no longer working.

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122 Christian April 21, 2010 at 6:38 pm

Twitter is their own worst enemy and will create their own demise. I won’t lose any sleep over it when it happens either. Almost no one pays any attention to what others say on Twitter. They just think that everyone else cares what they’re Tweeting about.

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123 Creative Marketer April 21, 2010 at 10:19 pm

People do care about other people tweeting – at least, Twitter’s market does. They’re usually young and trendy, and believe that the whole world wants to know what they’re thinking. In the end, that’s what drives sales – a niche full of people who think they deserve it all.

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124 Jason S. April 21, 2010 at 10:20 pm

Uh… I’m sorry, I just had a High School Musical the Movie moment – that blonde boy and his sister singing I Want It All.

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125 F2Xsites April 21, 2010 at 11:18 pm

Uh, someone’s not reading the post properly. Seriously, I don’t understand this comment. It just seems to be the comment of someone who hates Twitter but has never tried it :/

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126 TomYoon April 21, 2010 at 8:30 pm

Dudes, the video is perfectly working. But that’s because Shoe replaced the Vimeo one with the YT one that someone posted in the comments. Sigh if only people read the comments sometimes instead of jumping straight to the video and complaining.

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127 Nicole Burns April 21, 2010 at 8:38 pm

Video link’s working now, thanks Shoe!

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128 PokeYerFace April 21, 2010 at 8:40 pm

No new posts, Shoe? Hope you’re feeling okay. Surgery can be a bitch to bounce back from.

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129 medomoc April 21, 2010 at 11:40 pm

I honestly don’t use twitter for marketing/advertising, so I don’t know what I should do with this information yet. But this is pretty interesting. Thanks for this, Jeremy.

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130 MVZP_01 April 21, 2010 at 11:53 pm

Great post, Shoe. But I had to watch the video first before reading your post. :D You answered the questions and provided the info that were missing from the Twitter video. Really helpful

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131 WilmaP April 22, 2010 at 12:04 am

Off topic, but I can’t help to ask this. Why does Twitter always emphasize the 140 number? I mean OK we get it, 140 characters per tweet, but a 140-second video explaining something? Come on. I know it’s a marketing thing so that people will know how serious they are about being known for the 140 number, but it’s a little annoying. Just ranting.

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132 Cristina Dy April 22, 2010 at 12:38 am

Wow, I just read some of the comments. Why so negative?

I think promotional tweets open up possibilities for advertisers. And Twitter is still an untapped source of traffic — well, not so much, but it’s not like MySpace of Facebook. I think this would be great for Twitter, advertisers, and users. They all have something to gain from this.

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133 enajyram00 April 22, 2010 at 1:03 am

I think what generates the negativity is the fact that Twitter will be getting ad content from users (w/o permission? Not so sure) and the users won’t be getting any money from that. And that also opens up another issue, which is privacy.

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134 laptop backpack April 22, 2010 at 1:20 pm

It’s gonna be fun to watch the new advertising platform roll out. New product = inefficiencies = money making opportunities.

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135 James April 23, 2010 at 1:30 am

I agree it was expected to happen that they want to monetize their success. Very interested to read the success stories and when things go wrong, will follow it closely and hope you will post your experience too Jeremy.

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136 Devin April 24, 2010 at 2:48 pm

Jeremy,
This is some good information, thanks for providing.
Devin

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137 Tim April 26, 2010 at 6:33 pm

I wondered how long it was going to take for twitter to do something like this. Thanks for the post.
-Tim

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138 Outdoor Bistro Sets April 26, 2010 at 7:22 pm

Twitter is a much smarter option for branders than direct response marketers imo

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139 seo basics April 28, 2010 at 1:50 am

Enjoyed reading this very much – thank you for writing it!

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140 Best Blogger Templates May 2, 2010 at 2:05 pm

Privacy privacy privacy!!!!!!!!! This does not look good at all.

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141 Guy Kirsh August 24, 2010 at 6:07 pm

Interesting post, thanks for posting. It was good to read on this rainy night!

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142 haemophilus influenzae February 21, 2011 at 7:15 am

Wow if tweeter is really doing this… does it means that our tweet is no longer private to our friend anymore?
Why would I want other to know what I am tweeting?

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143 ketones February 21, 2011 at 7:17 am

As I thought, twitter was going to use it wide reach to help company advertise
This is a very smart move

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144 john sinha March 31, 2011 at 7:04 am

nice post and good use of wordsnice post and good use of words

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145 Kitchen sink April 1, 2011 at 1:50 am

it is a very useful post for everyone. intersting and enjoyable thankyou for share.

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146 Get More Followers August 21, 2011 at 8:26 am

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147 shajan September 3, 2011 at 12:51 am

i would like to advertise for our client – Qatar Foundation on twitter. would you please help me to proceed. thanks

shajan
International media Buyer

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148 Pcdrome September 5, 2011 at 1:04 am

I have been surfing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be a lot more useful than ever before.

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149 BigMoneyBrooklyn April 22, 2010 at 12:34 am

With the right tools and the right amount of know-how, anything that you put up on the net can be found out by a third party.

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150 dan January 12, 2011 at 5:23 pm

I think the original tweeter not getting paid the right thing.

You didn’t need to right about how much you love KFC. You knew you were doing so in a public place and that it would be visible to the whole world. So you WANT to promote KFC.

Now if Twitter started paying you for saying good things about brands your feed would turn in to a list of people trying to say the best thing about the richest brand to get the most money.

I think mostly the brands will be promoting their own tweets anyway.

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