Earlier this year, a Twitter memo leaked revealing how the site planned to implement a major advertising campaign. The document made mention of “Promoted Tweets”, which until now hadn’t been fully introduced to your Twitter stream. But now, they are reportedly just around the corner from fully hitting your feed. So if you thought Twitter was inundated with ad-like Tweets before, just you wait. According to Financial Times, Twitter is in meetings to wrap up the details of the service, which could roll out over the next two months.
This new ad scheme would be different than current ad-like posts because you would be subjected to Promoted Tweets from accounts your profile isn’t associated with. Companies would pay for the ability to interrupt your feed–regardless of whether or not you follow them–which is obviously a valuable service that turns Twitter into a very different, even more marketing-focused platform.
Twitter has been investing in adding significant advertising opportunities to its platform for awhile, and these ambitions have been no secret. Promoted Accounts were a significant addition, allowing companies to pay to have their Twitter stream suggested to users in the “Who to Follow” column. But despite any baby steps Twitter has tried to take with its marketing options, users backlash has been significant. Expanding its “promoted” concept isn’t the only new advertising element that is likely to hit Twitter in the very near future. The site is also considering introducing a Groupon-like client that would run time-limited deals, as well as specialized accounts for “media management” that would allow businesses to compose and schedule tweets in advance.
Twitter has been relatively forthcoming with such alterations, saying it would remove anything that doesn’t improve the user experience or serve its product. But these are some big, bold changes, and if users rebel it could be detrimental for Twitter to abandon this revenue plan.
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