Twitter's Promoted Tweets Will Start Appearing in Your Stream Even If You Aren't Following the Accounts

A few months ago, we reported that Twitter ads were taking the next step and putting Promoted Tweets, otherwise known as ads, in users’ streams. The upside to this was that if a user wasn’t following the Twitter account from where the Promoted Tweets originated, said user would not see the Promoted Tweets. However, that didn’t seem to last very long, as Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said that Promoted Tweets are going to take another next step, and will appear to everyone, whether or not a user is following the account from which the promoted tweet originated.

Costolo said:

“We’re expanding Promoted Tweets.

You’ll start seeing them from companies you don’t follow. We’ve been super cautious about that, we didn’t want to sacrifice user experience.”

And yet, here we are. The Promoted Tweets, however, won’t just be a random sampling of ads from Twitter.

Instead of choosing ads at random, the Promoted Tweets that will appear in the main stream will be determined by similar Twitter accounts one follows, based on the interest graph said followed accounts. So, if a user follows Pepsi, they’ll probably get Pepsi Promoted Tweets, but if a user doesn’t follow Pepsi, but follows other soda-related accounts, they’ll most likely get soda-related Promoted Tweets appearing in their stream.

Costolo also mentioned that Twitter is working on sharing ad revenue with third-party developers that show Promoted Tweets in their Twitter apps, and that Twitter is also working on refining their ad targeting, two things that will probably rake in the cash a little more. So, at least now when people ask how Twitter makes money, instead of shrugging and wondering the same thing, you can provide a few answers before you say “but that can’t possibly support the whole company, right?”

When the new Promoted Tweets take hold of our athlete-and-celebrity-following platform has not yet been revealed.

(VentureBeat via Hacker News)

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James Plafke