Twitter starts commercializing users' streams by publishing ads, implications for Social TV are?

Posted by Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP in Writers on November 02, 2010  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter |

Ad Age reports that as of the first of November, Twitter has expanded its advertising platform, called Promoted Tweets, to user's streams. Twitter advertisers such as Virgin, Starbucks and Red Bull have bought into this new service.

On the evolution of Twitter's monetization, by Mashable:

The microblogging service launched its ad platform last April in order to begin monetizing its more than 100 million users. Twitter first included ads in search result pages, but then launched ads in trending topics. Last month, Twitter unveiled Promoted Accounts, which advertises a brand’s Twitter account in the website’s “Suggestions for You” feature.

Twitter will start showing the paid tweets only to people who use HootSuite, a popular third-party client. Twitter will sell advertising whilst Hootsuite will get a cut of the revenue by showing the tweets to its 900,000 userbase.

HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes said:

"We look forward to working with Twitter to roll this program out and carefully gauge people's reactions. With Twitter's commitment to quality user experience and ad relevance, we're confident these new types of tweets will be enjoyed by both users and advertisers."

That is a remark I'm not so sure about. Enjoyed by both users and advertisers? 

The first monetisations of Twitter had a different character, they infused ads when people were searching on topics, were checking the trending topics and "Suggestions for You. These types of advertising can be compared to Search Engine advertising, where companies can show ads based upon intentions (search queries) or at least a quest to find content that users are looking for.

Infusing user's streams is a different ball game. If we take the Social-Media-is-like-a-Cocktail-Party comparison, how would people like it if somebody starts promoting Starbucks just because someone refers to a good coffee experience with them?

Revenue streams

The need for viable revenue streams is something every company is in search of, the primary revenue models are interesting which offer potential for Twitter. It depends though on the users' modus while searching or viewing trending topics. Are they in a buying modus, or are they searching for recommendations?

If it's the latter, advertising dollars in Twitter could not be as effective as Search engine advertising in terms of cause-and-effect, meaning that for Twitter it has to compete with other branding channels and needs to prove a certain conversion-track-record. If Twitter is in essence a content/interaction platform, why is it risking of "poluting" the interaction streams with ads? Why B2C if B2B revenue models are even more interesting and keeps the interaction stream clean.

Something that could arise is indeed a clean user stream by upgrading ones Twitter account for X amount per year.  Researches have shown that users are willing to pay an amount to have access to ad-free and/or upgraded content.

Why not provide B2B models? True win-win for users and advertisers

Why is Twitter not providing B2B models, why not provide companies with data insights extracted from user streams that add value and insight to companies marketing strategies? Twitter is certainly able to provide Social Network Analysis (SNA) kind of data mining which can show company X the core users, enthausiasts, its reach, visibility of brand in a statistical way and so on.

SNA provides alternatives for conventional market research, in a more affordable way, why are Twitter (and others for that matter) not exploring these opportunities, creating a true win-win situation for both users and advertisers.

Implications for Social TV?

Are people in a Social TV experience, waiting for commercially infused content? I'm not so sure that the interruptive character of this type of advertising will be favorable.This way the TV content isn't going to be interrupted, but the (two-screen) lean-in experience will be. Taking the conclusions of this article "Almost Half of All British Using Social Media While Watching TV" on AppMarket, it's a risk that will be taken, to affect such a new development with commerciality in this way.

If we take this from a B2B-model point of perspective, in this context it will be interesting to broadcasters and content providers to learn and understand their userbase according to Twitter usage and interaction. Trackable interaction that can be put in relation with the content and other users.

Making use of Digitized Complexity

The complexity of the digital world provides plenty of opportunities when it comes to generating -new- revenue. If companies can provide other companies with (real-time) market intelligence it will suite both companies' needs. Co-creation is the keyword, people create and partake in B2B models, why bother them with advertising?