About three weeks back, Twitter started testing Promoted Tweets on mobile devices. Basically, the test began with promoted tweets appearing up on searches and newsfeeds in mobile apps, but only showed up for user following a particular brand. Promoted accounts also began showing up in “Who to Follow” recommendations.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco company announced that it had made changes that will allow it to publish “promoted tweets” from advertising companies across its apps and website. Basically, you are going to start seeing ads from brands that Twitter feels you ‘might have an interest in’ but that you do not explicitly follow. Twitter also said, in a blog post, that it will offer advertisers the option of targeting promoted tweets by filtering them to show up only on the iPhone and iPad, on Android devices or on other mobile gadgets.
Twitter does not say how they will establish that you share an interest with one of your friends who follows a brand.
Twitter is also initiating the ability for advertisers to target specific devices like iOS or Android, or to circulate Promoted Tweet campaigns across all platforms at once, including the desktop. “Starting today,” says Twitter, “we are expanding this test, enabling brands to target Promoted Tweets to mobile users that share similar interests with their existing followers.”
“Promoted Tweets will appear in user timelines like any other tweet, and, like regular tweets, they will appear in the timeline just once; as people scroll, Promoted Tweets will flow with the rest of the tweets in the timeline. We will only display Promoted Tweets in the timeline when they are relevant,” a spokesperson said.
Moreover, the latest mobile targeting capabilities should prove tempting for advertisers looking to reach specific audiences, and could help the growing company attract much-needed advertising dollars away from Facebook, which already offers marketers highly specific targeting options.
In fact, under-wraps, Twitter is believed to be preparing an overhaul of brand pages that would allow advertisers to add on experiences onto the pages, such as e-commerce, contests, and sweepstakes.