The real power of Promoted Tweets

So Twitter finally launches a way to make some money. It’s like a shoe that’s been waiting to drop ever since the service went live and 140-character shareable minutia become the latest social communications rage.

I’m in general agreement with John Batelle – this is a measured, positive step for Twitter and I think one that, assuming brands don’t abuse it, will be received fairly well by reasonable users (I say *reasonable* meaning those who recognize that Twitter at some point had to build a revenue stream). To the extent that Twitter is learning from the evolution of Google’s insanely successful AdWords model, that can only help in the long run.

Batelle however also pointed out a huge potential risk: Twitter users have been conditioned to only see tweets from people they have deliberately followed show up in their stream. The new Promoted Tweets model marks a significant departure that shouldn’t be overlooked – if the tweets are viewed as excessively unwelcome intrusions, we could see significant blowback against brands who are labeled guilty abusers of them.

Now it’s true that with the “new” retweet functionality Twitter did begin to introduce unexpected faces into your tweet stream. It was a shock to many, myself included, when it appeared as if random people were popping up within your usual see of familiar avatars. Over time, I’d venture that most users have grown accustomed to the new retweets, and as such, the sanctity of your tweet stream being “only those I follow!” has already started to get torn down.

Back to how brands will use Promoted Tweets, and doing that in the “right” way. Twitter has been piloting the functionality with six selected brands, among them Virgin Atlantic, which means we already have an early use case study to review, courtesy of Mashable:

How Virgin is using promoted tweets is what’s most important – targeting only very specific search terms while attempting to respect the issue of intrusion I noted above:

Gale spoke strongly about Virgin America’s position around Promoted Tweets being about better engagement. She doesn’t see the paid-for-tweets as advertisements, but instead as opportunities to enhance the communication that they’re having with customers and followers.

To that effect the company is purposely burying their Promoted Tweets in nearly impossible to find search listings. By opting to select highly specific keywords Virgina American can assure that they will only be seen by Twitter searchers looking for something very specific. Gale describes the follower relationship as something sacred and one the company has no intention to disrupt. She says, “people have to really want the promotion to find the tweet.” (my emphasis added)

That, in my opinion, is the right attitude for brands to take when evaluating a Promoted Tweets campaign. Respect the follower relationship, and reserve your ad spend for deep searchers who display an explicit interest in something highly relevant to your ad. Avoid even the appearance of disruption no matter what. You do not want to be the first case study of a brand that got it wrong and pissed of 50,000 diehard Twitter users.

How all this shakes out over the coming months will be fascinating to see, as brands experiment with the new model and Twitter refines the functionality.

Related posts:

1. Sponsoring tweets boils down to integrity and tolerance
2. The Great Tweet Ad Debate