What Do Ads on Twitter Mean for Internet Marketing and You?
Last week (Sept 10th) Twitter amended it’s terms of service to include the right to display advertisements. However where, when and how the ads will be pushed is “open for exploration”:
The Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the Content or information on the Services, queries made through the Services, or other information. The types and extent of advertising by Twitter on the Services are subject to change. In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.
It was only a matter of time before this occured. It takes a lot of resources to dispatch the amount of SMS messages that Twitter does each day.
Internet Marketers are waiting in suspense to see how this will play into their ad campaigns while many consumers have mixed feelings about the subject based on my observations on Monitter and Twitter Search.
What does this mean for Internet Marketers?
Internet Marketers will now have a legitimate (non-spammy) avenue for pushing their products and services to millions of targeted users on Twitter. While the nature of these advertising avenues is still unknown, my guess is they will be more trackable than what is being utilized today.
What does this mean for developers?
There is new opportunity for developers who are adept at leveraging Twitter’s API. Expect to see numerous ad serving platforms sprout up as Twitter’s advertising avenues become more clearly defined.
What does this mean for consumers?
Here come the ads! Twitter has made it clear that they have no intentions of placing banner ads on their site, so I am guessing ads may appear in Twitter conversation streams. Hopefully they will be non-invasive or Twitter could potentially offend users of their popular service.
Potential Hurdles?
Given the rate at which information is exchanged on Twitter, It could prove difficult to measure an actual ad impression (clicks are another story.) Users who follow 10,000+ people may be difficult to reach with ads, especially if they prefer to view a live stream of their conversations with tools such as Tweet Deck,Hootsuite or Seesmic.
I am excited to see how this develops and hope it has a positive effect on my client’s advertising initiatives.
