Twitter Simplifies it's Business Model - #not

Twitter ranks as one of the most popular sites on the Internet. So we all have waited with baited breath of news on when they were going to start putting together a business model. The news broke yesterday.

They have launched what they call a simple service titled “Promoted tweets” and this morning I have been trying to get my head round what this means to the Twitter Eco System and how our clients will benefit from this service.

Twitter are classing this as the first stage and already have a number of advertising partners onboard to trial the service which include: Starbucks, Virgin America (not surprised), Red Bull, Best Buy and Sony Pictures. The premise being is that promoted tweets are just like ordinary tweets that brands may wish to use should they want to highlight their Tweet to a wider community.

We are going to begin to see promoted tweets appear at the top of some of Twitter Search result pages (see image above). Twitter will be measuring whether people like the tweets via their interaction with the message ie: marking as favourite, Re-tweeting or @replying. If no body/tweeter appears to like the promoted Tweet then it will disappear. I believe there will be a connection to the Twitter user and the promoted tweet, a little bit like “You may be interested in feature” on Amazon, ie: the more you RT tweet a tweet from a sports brand the more promoted tweets from sport brands you will see.

Also as the Tweet is promoted and Twitter seek to make money then the promoted tweets will be purchased on a CPM model and quite excitedly (for Flashlight) it will be a mix of earned versus paid media – as you need to make your Tweets work.

Having a combination or organic and paid ads will suit Rocktime’s Flashlight Team well as we have the mix of SEO expertise, Paid search expertise and Social Media Savvyness.

I am sure there is more in this development, so I went and visited Web Strategist Blog by Jeremiah Owyang to see what he has to say, quite alot as it happens.

Jeremiah has provided a summary of the promoted, explaining as I have above on how it will work, he has also developed a matrix on what Twitter’s promoted tweets business model will mean to the Eco-system. Go and view his blog post here and follow him (blog & twitter) as he regularly talks a lot of sense:

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/04/13/quicktake-analysis-what-twitters-resonation-means/

Twitter’s founder Biz Stone has let us all know that there will be more announcements soon as the project matures, they are currently finding their feet too in understanding how to measure Twitter user interaction on the Tweets. Once they have a footing this will be rolled out to other advertisers. So watch this space, as I am sure we have some very interesting times ahead.

Reputation and respect has never been more key. Power to the people ! and good luck to the brands in finding the 140 characters that resonate with their audiences.


Author: Sarah Griffiths