Twitter Plans to Offer Ad Placement for Small Businesses
Twitter introduced Promoted Tweets, Trends, and Accounts back in May of 2010. Known as an exclusive advertising program, it was difficult for small to medium size businesses to throw their hat in the ring.
Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, has been pushing hard to increase ad sales staff and directors. Now they are up to a team of 35 strong and going back over your advertising requests you may have submitted several months ago.
Out of the 200 million users, there is only a handful of smaller companies participating in the promoted tweets, promoted trends, and accounts. Currently, potential advertisers submit a request that goes directly to Twitter’s staff. The request is either approved or denied depending on saturation of the advertisers market, and also the potential ad spend.
However, Twitter is looking to change the exclusivity and offer more opportunities for small to mid level businesses.
“Twitter’s effort to woo small advertisers, begun in December, comes amid investment froth around the start-up. In low-level talks with potential buyers, representatives of Twitter have said it is worth several billion dollars more than the $4 billion valuation set during a financing round in December, people familiar with the matter have said.”
The ability to reach targeted users at a specific point in time is what makes advertising on Twitter different. Users can also insert their ads into trends to receive maximum impressions. Big brands have paid up to $120,000 for a 24 hour ad and companies such as Starbucks, Best Buy, and Virgin Mobile have all found great success with Twitter’s advertising program.