Twitter’s Promoted Tweets
Twitter’s Promoted Tweets have been around since April 2010. At first, these were available only to a select number of advertising partners, but over the past few months they have expanded their network of advertisers and in the past few days Twitter started syndicating promoted tweets in some user’s timelines. Now, all you need to do is fill out this form (scroll waaaay down to the bottom to access the form link) to apply to become an advertiser.
cvent’s Promo
It was yesterday that I began seeing cvent’s sponsored tweets in the #eventprofs timeline. At the present time cvent is the first and only advertiser in the community. If you monitor the #eventprofs conversation you’ll see how their tweets hold the #1 position in the timeline – even if I tweet after them, my tweet will fall below theirs.
Naturally, cvent is garnering a lot of attention – positive, negative and indifferent. But I struggle with how this concept will scale successfully for Twitter and for those who use it. It remains to be seen how Twitter will roll out this program – their lips are pretty tight on their plans – and it sounds as if they’re doing a lot of experimentation to ensure users don’t become disengaged with their site.
More info on promoted tweets
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l-ivcnLrSc
How do you feel?
So, how do you feel about Sponsored Tweets – a necessary evil or an annoyance?
I’ve seen several negative tweets about Cvent’s sponsored tweet at the top of the #eventprofs timeline. I personally don’t like it and think it has potential for a lot of negative responses. Sponsored tweets could also really muddy the waters for conference and event hashtags.
I hope they find a better way for sponsored tweets instead of static tweet at the top of a TweetDeck or HootSuite column.
[on READY2SPARK] Sponsored tweets – What do you think? – http://www.ready2spark.com/2010/11/spons… #eventprofs
@ready2spark Not sure if I like Sponsored Tweets…But I am not sure that it isnt coming… #eventprofs
RT @ready2spark: [on READY2SPARK] Sponsored tweets – What do you think? – http://www.ready2spark.com/2010/11/spons… #eventprofs
RT @ready2spark: [on READY2SPARK] Sponsored tweets – What do you think? – http://www.ready2spark.com/2010/11/spons… #eventprofs
Lara, thanks for posting this. At Cvent we were testing the waters with sponsored tweets and learned a valuable lesson to not use promotion in combination with a community hash tag. Since the beta for promoted tweets is only one day old, it is a learning process for us. Thank you for sharing your opinion and helping us solidify the right/wrong strategy for how to use this tool. My apologies to anyone that was offended by it. Eric, VP Marketing at Cvent.
Eric, many thanks for your comments. And thank you for your honest feedback. It will be great learning for others in the community. I think it will be very interesting to see how these promoted tweets roll out – today there’s a bit of novelty and limited use. I just can’t see how this could scale for Twitter. I would agree that when attached to a community hashtag, it feels interruptive – yet this is exactly how Twitter promotes it in their Youtube video. Thank you once again for sharing with us.