The executives at Twitter, fresh from celebrating the fourth birthday of their incredibly popular brand, have decided to allow other brands to begin paying for, what they are calling “promoted tweets” in an attempt to financially capitalize on the site’s popularity. The likes of Virgin America, Red Bull, Best Buy and Starbucks have already signed up to be the first to experiment with this new advertising medium. The idea will be that promoted tweets will appear as a headline tweet in the results page of certain Twitter searches, and eventually ‘relevant’ promoted tweets will be showcased on a user’s timeline. Twitter maintains that these tweets will only stay in view if users interact and respond to them, either by re-tweeting or leaving a comment.
This concept was definitely a foreseeable one for Twitter, which is seeking a business model that can actually turn a profit, but it is possible that this method may cause serious backlash from Twitter followers. For a long time, Twitter has provided the consumer with an outlet to vent their frustrations at the big corporations, and it has proved a more effective complaints bureau than anyone could imagine. How will these same consumers feel about Twitter when they understand that they are being funded by the same companies they are complaining about?
Moreover, the brands that are paying for promotion run the risk of devaluing their names by simply irritating users with irrelevant and unwanted content. Unlike those who utilize Google, Twitter users are not in the buying mindset, and thus could easily interpret the presence of tweeted advertisements as borderline offensive. It may be hyperbolic, but the users of Twitter consider this social outlet a personal place to speak one’s mind, indeed many customize their pages with personalized skins. Users follow who they want and enjoy the fact that they can control who and what they view. Brands will have to be careful that what they are tweeting is not the usual “look at us, we’re great” marketing drivel. It will not be accepted, and users will be in the perfect place at that time to make their feelings known.
Doom and gloom forecasts aside, this news will provide marketers with yet another platform to reach the ever-growing online consumer market, and if handled cautiously, could actually prove fruitful. If marketers can engage users with appropriate material that is colloquially worded as any other tweet would, they may receive some positive feedback. The key is that these tweets must add value right from the beginning. Contribute to the user in some way, offer them something useful and of practical application. This is the mistake that Facebook has made. Their ads are obscure and only loosely relate to pieces of information taken from users’ bios; as a result they are largely ignored.
For success, Twitter from the offset must be stringent in allowing only vetted and proper tweets from established brands; anything less and they’ll definitely hear about it. For now, though, it is unclear how this will pan out, most likely there will be initial uproar by loyalists, before any widespread acceptance where consumers are actually pleased with the tailored interactions from their favorite brands – alas, the future is unclear. We’ll just have to watch this advertising space.
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