Promoted Tweets

Twitter has recently launched the “first phase” of  Promoted Tweets.  Only a few large companies like Best Buy, Red Bull,  Sony and Starbucks will be involved in the initial launch.

Promoted Tweets show at the top of some of Twitter.com search results pages.  Twitter strongly believes that Promoted Tweets should be helpful to the twitter using population, which is growing like crazy.  Twitter will monitor promoted tweets to see which ones “resonate” with users, if a promoted tweet doesn’t “resonate” with users  it will be taken down.

Example Promoted Tweet from Starbucks.

Promoted Tweets will be labeled “Promoted by XXX” when an advertiser is paying, but in every other respect they will first exist as regular Tweets and will be organically sent to the timelines of those who follow a brand. Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favoriting. Only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page.

Twitter wants to get a good understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, they plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you.

Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single “ad” in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn’t already an organic part of Twitter. This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment.

There is one big difference between a Promoted Tweet and a regular Tweet. Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar—they must resonate with users. That means if users don’t interact with a Promoted Tweet to allow us to know that the Promoted Tweet is resonating with them, such as replying to it, favoriting it, or Retweeting it, the Promoted Tweet will disappear.