Twitter ad move welcomed by experts

The microblogging site plans to start generating revenue by allowing advertisers to access its 45m monthly visitors. Experts said brands would be keen to increase their reach on the site with paid-for advertising.

At this stage, the model Twitter will adopt is unknown. Its terms of service say, "The types and extent of advertising by Twitter on the services are subject to change."

Sharon Braude, group account director and head of social media division at Media Contacts, said there was no question about brands' willingness to pay to advertise on the site.

"At the moment Twitter is a walled garden and your followers are as deep as you can go, so brands will definitely pay to advertise on Twitter in order to extend their reach," she said.

Alex Miller, head of Jam, the social media division of media agency i-level, said there's huge demand from brands to be able to buy media easily on the site, but warned it could discourage use of Twitter as a marketing channel.

"As soon as it opens up to advertising it will be easy for brands and agencies to buy on the site, but that may stop the creative uses of Twitter by brands, which have come as a result of it not being easy to just pick up the phone and buy media," he said.

A spokesman for Kellogg's, which has a Twitter profile, said it was too soon to plan advertising on the platform. "We currently use it as a tool to have conversations with people," he said. "But we understand it's an evolving media so it's too early to say whether we would advertise as we'd want to fully understand the audience before we did."

In a blog post, founder Biz Stone said Twitter won't be looking at banner advertising but instead will add to its services for companies, which could include an "analytics dashboard".

Antony Mayfield, senior VP of social media at digital agency iCrossing, said, "Some sort of deeper API or premium service that allows brands to get more data would work, and brands would be keen to explore options."

Published by: Charlotte McEleny

Published 11th September, 2009

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