Mobile Advertising Promoted Tweets Announced

Now businesses are ready to cash-in on popular microblogging tools by Twitter boasting upwards of 30-million users, as it announced its new advertisement model. As reported by SustainableVirtualBiz.com, Twitter has gained significant market share, primarily among mobile consumers receiving “Tweets” messages while on the road.  It marks the first step toward cashing in on its revenue generating potential as it moves aggressively to capture mobile advertising business.

Twitter's new advertising program known as "Promoted Tweets" will initially be rolled out about 10% of users via search on Twitter.com beginning Tuesday, stated company spokesperson Sean Garrett. 

"We wanted to do something that just enhances the conversation that companies are already having with their customers on Twitter," Twitter Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo told Advertising Age. Costolo will formally unveil promoted tweets during an opening keynote speech for Ad Age's Digital Conference in New York on Tuesday. Others watch as Google (62% market share search engine), Yahoo (17%) and Microsoft's BING (11%) jockey for mobile eCommerce and SaaS dominance.

The Twitter ad platform is similar to the revenue model of TweetUp Inc., a Pasadena start up that launched Monday. TweetUp intends to generate income from bids placed on keywords that show up on Twitter searches. Those tweets, which would also be ranked by factors such as the tweet writer's expertise, would appear on filtered searches on social media clients like Seesmic. 

Twitter will unveil the new ad platform four days after announcing it had acquired Atebits LLC, the third party maker of an iPhone app Tweetie. Twitter, has also worked with Research in Motion to create an official Twitter app for the BlackBerry, stating it wanted to create a better mobile experience for its users. 

"Users will start to see tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages," he added. Several companies will run ads, including Best Buy, Virgin America and Starbucks, the New York Times said on its website. 

The 2-1/2-year-old Internet start-up's short text messages or "tweets" have become a global social phenomenon and the service is used by millions of people every day. 

"Twitter has great potential as a marketing and advertising channel with opportunities to create viral buzz around a product or service," said Eden Zoller, analyst at technology research firm Ovum. 

The flip side of Twitter's immediacy is that if advertising messages are not very carefully positioned users can hit back at brands and in real time, and brands will have little control over this. Twitter, a privately held company, does not report earnings, but its website says: “While our business model is in a research phase, we spend more money than we make for now.” Perhaps, that will change soon as it fine tunes its model.  

BIO: Mr. Rickman is a respected CEO/Developer living in Oregon. For over 30-years, companies large and small have relied on his innovative business development, Internet marketing and sales eCommerce services. He is a published sustainable analyst, ghost-writer columnist and co-author worldwide of several books including Eight Billion People.  Mr. Rickman holds advanced business and technical degrees from Boston University. For more information visit: http://www.sustainablevirtualbiz.com  or call (503) 621-4953.