Invite colleagues
Twitter, the micro-blogging platform has come out and announced a new advertising platform that it hopes will attract brands and effectively monetize its service. The reports on the Internet say the ad program is called Promoted Tweets, and is based on a similar approach to Google's Adsence.
Basically, marketers buying up keywords and their posts appearing at the top of a list when users enter relevant search terms. What is this ads platform about and can it be copied by our Chinese micro-blogging platforms?
According to the New York Times- Dick Costolo, Twitter's chief operating officer said, "The idea behind Promoted Tweets is that we want to enhance the communications that companies are already having with customers on Twitter," "The ability of companies to engage with customers around this interest graph is more compelling than trying to wedge yourself into these social interactions. In choosing which specific tweets to highlight, Twitter will employ nine metrics, such as the number of people who replied, forwarded it on to their "followers" or clicked on the links it contained.
Best Buy, the consumer electronics firm, Virgin America, the airline, and Starbucks, the coffee chain, have all signed up to this service thus far. Chris Bruzzo, vice president of brand, content and online at Starbucks, said this strategy would help the corporation alert its target audience to promotions and other news they could be interested in. "When people are searching on Starbucks, what we really want to show them is that something is happening at Starbucks right now, and Promoted Tweets will give us a chance to do that," he argued.
According to comScore, Twitter's user base had reached 22.3 million people in the US by March 2010, up from just 524,000 a year earlier. Moreover, this estimate did not incorporate the vast number of people who access the social network via smartphone applications and similar online tools such as TweetDeck and Tweetie. This is a huge jump in users and although the rate of growth is now flattening it still boasts a large audience.
Further, I think that in the West the social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are getting a good deal of traction with brands and therefore can see this platform quickly becoming a regular element within a media plan for a brand. It seems that the pricing will be on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis so depending on the rate we most media buyers will easier understand the metrics.
Although here in China we don't have access to Twitter (except for those with VPN's) I think Sina and others filling the Chinese micro-blogging void will be watching closely. Bets on for when we see a copy of this ads platform being introduced into our Chinese 'Twitter" clones.
Source: New York Times/AdAge
Written on Tuesday, 13 April 2010 19:20 by Matt McDougall
