Twitter Aims to Tweet Brands with Respect

By chalking up its 100 millionth user, Twitter can no longer be denied as a media platform that's here to stay. Yet many struggle to see the value in communicating in 140 charters or less, including Twitter itself. Coinciding with its 100 millionth user, Twitter this week unveileda number of initiatives to leverage the brand to generate revenue. For Twitter, "making money was now a primary goal."

It's somewhat odd to think that a service with 100 million users has no solid way to turn a profit, handsome or not. (As Stephen Colbert teased Twitter co-founder Biz Stone during an interview, "So, I assume that 'Biz' in 'Biz Stone' does not stand for 'Business Model'.") Then again, that might be exactly why Twitter has cruised to 100 million users.

One of Twitter's revenue plans involves commercial accounts. Another, unsurprisingly, is advertising. Just don't call it advertising.

Unveiled at its inaugural developers conference this week in San Francisco, Twitter described its Promoted Tweet platform as "ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users." Brands testing users' reactions with promotional tweets this week include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America.

"Unlike Google, which places its text-based AdWords ads alongside its search results, a promoted tweet will in fact be a tweet, not an ad," said Twitter COO Dick Costolo at the unveiling. "The tweet probably, but not necessarily, will be placed at the top of the search results, identified with a different background color, and labeled as a promotional tweet. Since it is a tweet, users will be able to retweet, respond, or favorite it, just like other tweets."

Most importantly for brand marketers, Twitter will also provide metrics for the Promoted Tweet program. Just like not wanting to call their advertising advertising, the start-up doesn't want to call its analytics "analytics." Costolo said the company plans to incorporate an ROI model, with feeds charged on a new metric Twitter is calling "resonance".

Resonance will track user interactions with the promoted tweet: for instance, the number of times a tweet is viewed, favorited, and retweeted, in addition to how many times particular keywords or links are engaged with. Customers will be presented with a "resonance" score, a metric Costolo acknowledged he couldn't discuss in detail as it's not finalized.

All in all, a good start and users likely won't begrudge the need to start making money. However, Twitter would be well advised though to not let its advertising plan get out of control.

One of the primary reasons for Twitter's popularity is that it is largely free of commercial clutter. Twitter users will certainly accept some ads; but a flood of Promoted Tweets could kill the Golden Goose—the next bird that Twitter adopts as its logo?