That is the question…

Or at least everyone and their mum in the social media universe has been ranting and raving about the newly announced the Promoted Tweets advertising platform.

So is this a good thing? Is this the answer Twitter has been looking for to finally monetize their site, instead of working the internet corners asking for handouts “Will Tweet 4 Food”…

Or will this backfire horribly and eventually leave to the downfall of everyone’s favorite lil blue birdie?

Well from reading Biz Stone’s update on the Twitter Blog, what they have in store, actually looks very promising. The way the paid tweets system will work, is within their own  search system. So it’s very similar to how Adwords is utilized with Google searches, when a fellow twitter-er searches for a specific keyword, a sponsored tweet will show up in searches.

Now what does this mean for all of us marketers, and small business owners out there?

Well, you will now have access to a far larger audience on twitter than you ever imagined. So if you’ve been struggling for some time now, to build up a loyal and targeted following, then this may be the answer your looking for. And since the ads will be popping up based on a specific keyword, you will be tweeting at a very very targeted audience.

Unfortunately for right now, the Twitter Paid Tweets platform is only in phase one, and beta testing with larger accounts such as Starbucks. The bright side is that the bigger accounts will be spending their own money to work out the system bugs, which mean come time to open the advertising system to the public, you will have one of the most targeted and cost effective social advertising platforms on the web.

Now don’t get the wrong idea and think shoot yourself in the foot by making the promoted tweets your sole form of marketing. This will never replace the awesome power of PPC, SEO, or Media Buys…but what it will do, is add one more kickass gun to your marketing arsenal…

To Your Success,

Posted on April 15th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Business, Marketing, News, Social Media