Twitter to launch Promoted Accounts

Twitter has plans to reveal its newest promoted advertising product today at the IAB Conference in New York. The social media platform intends to monetize on the desire to gain more followers with the “Promoted Accounts” product. Businesses will have the option to pay to be included in the “Who to Follow” feature, which will increase the brands’ visibility on Twitter and access to a larger targeted audience.

According to an article on Mashable, the plan for Promoted Accounts leaked two months ago, in which the product was being debated in the concept stage. Now, there are talks of Promoted Tweets charging upwards of $100,000 making so it makes perfect sense that Twitter would want to take advantage of the large community of businesses looking to attract more Twitter followers and increase their influence of their product and/or service to their loyal customers. Promoted Accounts will also be algorithmically targeted to users who will be more inclined to follow specific brands.

Wall Street Journal also says, “The popularity of Twitter has fueled expectations that marketers could use the service to target relevant ads to consumers interested in real-time information about breaking events and other topics.” Since launching the advertising products in April, Twitter has signed on more than 30 big-name brands, including Coca-Cola, Virgin America and Starbucks.

“Some marketers say that early results are promising but that advertising on Twitter remains an experiment. Other marketers, including PepsiCo Inc.'s beverage brands and Best Buy Co., who tested out Twitter's new advertising products—some without cost—haven't made new ad buys.”

Twitter already offers Promoted Tweets, in which an individual or company pays to have their messages listed as the first result when a user searches for a term on the website.