Twitter launches Promoted Tweets

Social media marketing professionals are waking up to the news that Twitter has finally unveiled its long-awaited advertising model.

Promoted Tweets is a new platform that involves advertisers paying Twitter to post commercial messages for the first time. High-profile companies such as Starbucks, Virgin America, Sony Pictures and Red Bull have agreed to take part in the first phase of the scheme, which could revolutionise social media marketing.

Real time-search advertising

At first, Promoted Tweets will only be displayed at the top of certain search results pages on Twitter. Only one ad will appear to people accessing the site's real-time search function and, while it will be clearly labelled as a Promoted Tweet, users will be able to interact with it like a normal tweet. In fact, Twitter has even announced that ads which fail to show signs of resonating with users – such as those attracting replies, favouriting and retweeting – will cease to be shown.

Moreover, the social media site has stressed that this is just the first step in the monetisation of Twitter. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, said: "We want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines."

Mr Stone has previously indicated that a Twitter advertising model based on banner ads "isn't interesting to us". This stance puts it at odds with other social media platforms that utilise display ads such as YouTube, Bebo and Digg.