Twitter Rolls Out Promoted Tweets

Twitter and AdAge announce the release of a new advertising program called "Promoted Tweets."

According to the Twitter Blog, the first phase of the program will begin on Twitter's search page, where a single promoted tweet will sit at the top of search results. Later, assuming the program is well received among marketers and users, promoted tweets will eventually find a home on user feeds and third-party applications, like TweetDeck.

The first group of advertisers to use promoted tweets will include Starbucks, Bravo, Virgin America, Red Bull, Best Buy, and Sony Pictures. These companies bid on keywords on a cost-per-thousand basis and will pay for promoted tweets that rise above the resonance score of a typical marketing ad. The term "Resonance" refers to a performance model developed by Twitter to score activity with tweets. Specifically, there are nine elements that contribute to the resonance score, these include retweets, favorites, viewed, and clicked.

The entire roll out of sponsored tweets will take a year to complete. During that period, Twitter wants to receive feedback on the program and gauge its effectiveness and popularity.

Discussion
What do you think about Twitter's move into the advertisement game? How will this effect you as a user? Company?

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