I am sure by now you have already heard that Twitter plans to move to an advertising model for generating revenue. On Tuesday Twitter unveiled their long overdue business model in the form of Promoted Tweets, which COO Dick Costolo talked about in detail at the AdAge Digital conference.
Promoted Tweets will work by popping up whenever Twitter users search for keywords purchased by advertisers. Costolo stated “The idea behind Promoted Tweets is that we want to enhance the communications that companies are already having with customers on Twitter.” Depending on how well the first phase of the advertising model is received, Twitter will role out the second phase, which will consist of Promoted Tweets being placed in user’s time lines.
Twitter has seen tremendous growth since its inception, and other than deals with search engines to index their Tweets, this is the first major announcement of any business model for the site. The founders wanted to take the route that Google did, and create a site that gathers a massive amount of users and then focus on monetizing it. The only downside to that notion is that Twitter followers have gotten comfortable with the way things are now and a business model that involves Promoted Tweets, especially if they are being placed into a users time line without being sought after may not be well received.
With that said we want to ask our followers on Twitter what your thoughts are on Promoted Tweets. How do you feel about the first phase of the ad model that consists of discovering Promoted Tweets through keyword searches? How do you feel about the second phase of the ad model that consist of placing Promoted Tweets into user time lines, even if they do not follow the advertiser? Do you feel that a site that does Promoted Tweets, as opposed to Tweeting original content is less authentic? Let us know what you think. Sound off!
