By Kimberly Salter, IMF Member Service Manager

We’ve all been wondering for a while now how Twitter will make money.  This week we finally found out.  The new advertising program was introduced this week as “promoted tweets.”
 
The “promoted tweets” will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts, based on how relevant they might be to a particular user.  This new program will mark the first time twitter users will see a tweet from someone they have no chosen to follow directly. 

To determine if the promoted tweets are relevant, useful and valuable, Twitter will measure what it calls resonance. The Resonance score is based on nine factors, such as the number of people who saw the post, the number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and the number of people who clicked on links, to name a few.  If the promoted tweet does not meet a specified resonance score, Twitter will cancel that particular tweet.  Promoted tweets will also appear real-time, allowing relevant information to immediately follow a search or general tweet.

Twitter has limited the initial round of advertisers to a few select innovative companies including Best Buy, Bravo, Sony Pictures, Starbucks and Virgin America. Since its launch on Thursday, the promoted tweet platform has generated various reactions among Twitter users.  Many users see these unauthorized tweets in their feed as nothing more than spam and worry it will interfere with the user experience of which they are familiar.  As one blog response noted “There are 105 million plus on twitter…. so if everyone paid one dollar per month, twitter would get 105 million dollars a month….. I’m in for a buck to keep spam and junk off twitter.”  Others prefer to reserve judgment and wait to see how the program plays out over the next several weeks and into the second phase launch which will introduce more advertisers.  There are also a small number of Twitter fans who believe it is the right direction and are intrigued by the real-time, user-directed advertising approach.

As with anything only time will tell if this is something Twitter uses will accept, tolerate, or denounce.  At this point, regardless of the possible consequences, it seems like only a logical step for Twitter.

To read a Twitter’s take on promoted tweets, click here to read their blog post on the subject.

About the Author:

Kimberly Salter works with Members to maximize their IMF benefits and services, ensure they receive excellent customer service, and understand IMF is a valuable resource for their IT organizations. She is responsible for many aspects of IMF Forums including speaker acquisition and publicity.

Prior to IMF, Kimberly was in Service Management at AT&T (formerly BellSouth Internet Services) and with Forrester Research. Kimberly received her Bachelors degree from Georgia Southern University.