"The Truth About Twitter's Promoted Tweets"

Since Twitter's launch in 2007, it has seen huge growth and has become one of the dominant players when it comes to social media. If you're trying to establish an online presence, and have no idea what Twitter is - or aren't using it in some way to promote your brand - you haven't been paying attention. Shame on you.

“Twittering” has become a national phenomenon with its use trailing slightly behind Facebook’s. Recently Twitter shared some interesting statistics at "Chirp", the Twitter developer conference.

- 105,779,710 Registered Users of Twitter
- Approximately 55 million Tweets being sent daily
- 180 Million unique visitors monthly
- Signing up 300,000 new users daily
- Twitter’s search engine getting 600 million searches daily

For more stats, see http://tinyurl.com/2b8749v . Another Report, "Twitter Usage in America: 2010" by Edison Research, who presented three years of tracking date from national telephone surveys, found Twitter's awareness has exploded from 5% of Americans in 2008 to 87% in 2010. Another stat shows that 51% of active Twitter users follow companies, products or brands on social networks. For the complete report see: http://edisonresearch.com/twitter_usage_2010.php

Having said that, the problem all along has been how to take all of this growth and turn Twitter into a service that generates revenue. It has always been free to use, but like any company, Twitter's objective is to make money. Enter "Promoted Tweets", Twitter's new advertising program. It's very similar to Google Adwords. Advertisers bid on keywords and when a search is done on Twitter, triggering one of those keywords, an ad will be shown at the top of the results page - at least in phase one of the rollout. Only one promoted Tweet will be shown on the search results page.

In phase two of the roll out, the plan is to incorporate the ads into users Twitter streams, of course only when they're relevant. Eventually, the ads will be syndicated via third party apps too. This is important considering a huge amount of Twitter users access the service using various types of software.

The ads are clearly marked as such, and at the bottom they say "promoted by advertisers name", as well as being highlighted in yellow.

So what's the plan for pricing? For now, advertisers will bid on keywords based on CPM's (cost per thousand impressions), viewers who will see the ad. Twitter plans on using something called "Resonance Score" to help determine how well the ads are being received by viewers. This score includes factors such as number of clicks the ad receives, how many times it is “retweeted”, number of people who reply to it, and how many people decide to follow you as a result of seeing the ad. A low resonance score will result in the ad being removed.

Twitter's pricing model will eventually use the "Resonance Score" in some way down the road, but they first need to collect the data so they can "better understand the value of promoted Tweets".

Before you get too excited, understand that the initial launch of Promoted Tweets  is limited to a handful of customers. The Initial test group includes customers such as: Starbucks, Bravo, Virgin America, Best Buy, Sony Pictures. These are big companies with very deep pockets.

Advertising to Twitter users is not a new concept. There are other third party advertising programs already in place, such as http://www.SponsoredTweets.com and http://paymetweets.com/, among others, who have been selling ads in Twitter streams for a long time. How will Twitter's new ad program affect them? Twitter recently announced they will not allow third parties to inject ads into timelines. A bold move on Twitter's part, and putting them in a good position to be the dominant player when it comes to Twitter ads. For more see: http://tinyurl.com/2b3wpp6

Everyone will be holding their breath to see how Twitter users respond to this new advertising program. Some feel it's an invasion of their privacy, and other loyal users fear Twitter has sold out to "Commercialism". Whatever your feelings, ads are coming to Twitter - and who can fault a company for trying to earn a profit.

Twitter is a valuable tool when it comes to promoting your brand and/or products online.  Those who understand that won't mind a few ads, those who don't - well, they can just take their ball and go home <grin>.

"Twitter & Advertising: Do These Two Really Belong Together?"

By Merle http://MerlesWorld.com

The latest craze sweeping the Net right now is Twitter. This micro-blogging tool has evolved into millions of loyal users who love and use it daily. Twitter attempts to answer the question, "What are you doing right now?"It's very similar to text messaging, but your "tweets" are only seen by those who have chosen to "follow you".

Over the last few years, many have developed third party software and plug-ins that enable users to do more with Twitter. Along the same lines, many have been thinking of ways to profit from Twitter. Of course, since Twitter lets you communicate with people from all over the world, a natural connection is how to advertise to that crowd.

Now, if you asked most Twitter users what they thought of advertising on Twitter, they'd probably give you an evil stare, and no longer wish to associate with you. Yes, the thought of ads popping up on Twitter makes some people angry and does not appeal to the majority of avid
users.

Still, along with the protests, are those that think Twitter and advertising should go together, sort of like birthday's and cake. So what's available if you're interested in Twitter advertising? I thought
you'd never ask.

1) RevTwt- http://www.RevTwt.com

This service offers a variety of advertising options. Publishers can select from CPC (cost per click) ads,  CPT (cost per thousand), which you must have a specific number of followers for, or CPA (viewers must perform a specific action). RevTwt supplies the links and you paste them into your Twitter timeline.

2) Adf.ly: http://Adf.ly

A link shortening service with a twist. Shorten the URL, then post it to Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks, and you'll earn money with every click. The current payout for those in the U.S. is about $1.00 per thousand visitors.

3) Adjix: http://www.Adjix.com

Another link shortening service with an advertising twist built in. Twitter users can choose to embed
ads inside their tweets. Advertisers set the rate they are willing to pay for someone to tweet their
ad. Ad selection varies from a random ad to allowing you to target a specific subject area, for example health. An informative video is available at
http://adjix.com/ddew

4) Be-A-Magpie: http://be-a-magpie.com

A variety of compensation modes to pick from, including pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, pay-per-click, or pay-per-view.  Enter your Twitter user name to see how much you can earn.  You'll be paid to allow "Magpie" to post tweets to your  account. Tweets sent will be matched to the topic of your usual Tweets, so you won't need to worry about off-topic messages. It's up to you how many ads get posted. It can be set at the default, which is one Magpie tweet for every 10 of yours, or changed. You will need a Paypal account in order to get paid.

5) TwitterAd: http://www.TwitterAd.com

Built using the Twitter open API, just sign up to post your Twitter account to advertisers to sponsor it.  You select the ad duration and price, which can be 7 days, 15 days -even one to three months. Just sit back and wait for the offers to come in. You can accept or deny the ad within 48 hours. The recommended ad size is 211X484 height, 300 DPI for best placement on a Twitter user's background. Payouts are made once your account balance reaches $30.00.

6) PayMeTweets: http://www.PayMeTweets.com

To use this "micro-promotional" tool you'll first need to follow "@PayMeTweets.com”.   Watch for tweets you  like,then “retweet” (RT) them. You'll be paid a set amount for each one.  Payment varies depending on your "influence". Credits you earn can also be used to  advertise your own products/services. Payout per tweet ranges from a few pennies up to $20.00 for those Twitter users with heavy influence.

7) SponsoredTweets: http://www.SponsoredTweets.com

Connecting advertisers with Twitter users to sponsor "conversations". All paid Twitter ads contain a
disclosure to such in order to comply with the FTC.To set up an account you'll need to set your price,
then add a category and keywords. Advertisers come to you, and you'll make the decision to reject or accept them.

You'll be paid within 24 hours of posting Tweets, and you must earn $50.00 before cashing out. Ads are not posted to your Twitter timeline, you must manually post them.

As Twitter continues to evolve and grow, the number of advertising supported services will too. Like it or not, Twitter is a powerful communication tool that allows people to connect with each other all over the world, and marketing to that audience is a natural by-product of that.

No matter whether you like the idea or not, advertising to Twitter users is here to stay. I'm not taking one side over the other, just reporting some of the options. As my Mama used to say "Don't shoot the messenger!"

Advertise in Your Twitter Posts

Twitter is all the rage. It's everywhere you turn online and everyone seems to be talking about it and how to use it and cool add ons to extend its capabilities. If you use Twitter I'm sure you're hit over the head daily with these cool tools. I collect em like candy So it was just a matter of time before someone figured out how to bring advertising to Twitter.

With Adjix you use their link shortening service which creates a new link that you use in your Twitter posts but when someone clicks on the link the page they visit has a text ad across the top. It's small and not bothersome at all. You can choose specific types of ads or all.

Adjix also recently created a new ad format that allows you to embed ads at the end of your tweets. "Payment is based on the number of followers that a Twitter user has and how much an advertiser is willing to pay for an embedded ad." For an example of what these ads look like visit this link http://adjix.com/5grg

For more information visit the link above.