Why should you care about Twitter's "Promoted Tweet" advertising platform?

For all the discussion about Twitter’s new advertising platform today, I’m amazed that no one is talking about October 23rd, 2000. It’s a significant date in history and one that Twitter no doubt had in mind when launching their “Promoted Tweet” offering.

Sure, you can learn how Twitter’s new search-based advertising system works and why your business might be interested:

“When a Twitter user searches for a word an advertiser bought, the promoted message will show up at the top of the results, even if it was written much earlier. The posts say they are promoted by the company in small type, and when someone rolls over a promoted post with a cursor, it turns yellow.

The ads will also be a way for companies to enter the conversation when it turns negative. Several companies have created tools to measure sentiment on Twitter, but until now, businesses can do little with that information. Even if they write a post in response, it also quickly gets lost in a sea of complaints.” [Emphasis mine]

And, you can learn that Twitter plans to include “Promoted Tweets” in individual users’ Twitter streams in the future:

“The advertising program, which Twitter calls Promoted Tweets, will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts, based on how relevant they might be to a particular user.” [Emphasis mine]

You can hear read that many Twitter users aren’t thrilled with the new feature, even though most people haven’t seen it yet:

“Not surprisingly, most of them don’t like the idea of ads being inserted at the top of their Twitter search results and eventually into their personal Twitter streams.”

You can also see how Twitter understands its future depends on business customers. Clearly, I’ve been bullish on using Twitter for your business for some time. But, in addition to launching this advertising platform, Twitter is offering businesses an overview of its service, and some best practices and case studies to help you get more out of your activities on the site.

So, what does any of this have to do with October 23rd, 2000? That’s the day Google – which, to that time, had built up tremendous traffic and few revenues – launched its AdWords platform, permitting businesses for the first time to advertise within its once pristine search results.

While no one, not even me, will guarantee Twitter can repeat that success, the company has demonstrated its value as a service to its users. Just like Google did. They’ve grown huge by offering consumers a great way to connect with information they care about. Just like Google did. As long as Twitter can keep the attention of its users, I suspect they’re sitting on a compelling advertising platform for your business, too. Just like Google did.

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