US NetMarketing Nikkei May 10th Column: Twitter’s New Ad Play “Promoted Tweets”

The May 10th Nikkei BP Online column (in Japanese) “US NetMarketing Chawa,” titled “Twitter’s New Ad Play ‘Promoted Tweets’” talks about the April 14th announcement that Twitter will donate all (US) public tweets to the Library of Congress for their archives. The Library of Congress recognized tweets as a valuable record of people’s lives and thoughts, and plans to archive the data beginning with the very first tweet on March 21, 2006, and going forward.

In the meantime came the “Promoted Tweets,” Twitter’s 140 character-style ads based on keyword searches. Currently companies who have a strong presence on Twitter for customer relations and branding such as Best Buy, Virgin America Airlines, and Starbucks, have started advertising via promoted tweets on a test basis.

Research found 34% of Twitter users dislike targeted ads, and if users don’t respond to the ads, they stop appearing, so it is still unknown how companies will understand the Twitter ecosystem in engaging with users. The column (in Japanese) can be found here.