Los Angeles — In an attempt to make the incredibly crowded microblogging site a profitable revenue source, on Thursday, social networking site Twitter has finally unleashed the first of its money-making promoted trends — Disney’s ‘promoted tweet’ for “Toy Story 3” became the first topic that appeared as a “trending topic” because an advertiser had paid for it to be there.
On the right side of a user’s Twitter page, the list, which keeps tabs on the most popular phrases being used on Twitter, currently has “Toy Story 3” at the bottom of the list. As of Thursday, an 11th trend was added with a yellow banner beside it saying “Promoted”.
Disney/Pixar is one of a number of partners Twitter is working with, including Starbucks and electronics retailer Best Buy. Clicking on the trend takes users to a search for the topic, as it would with a non-commercial tweet. Then at the top of that search a “Promoted” tweet from Disney/Pixar appears, but the conversation below remains unedited.
Social network Twitter has introduced paid-for trends, starting with Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3
Twitter introduced its Promoted Tweets ad platform in April. At the time, it made association with several specific advertisers, including Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America. If you begin to search for those brands on Twitter, the top search result would be an ad from those sponsors. At launch, Promoted Tweets were only included in search results, but Twitter said it would eventually expand the program.
If the “Promoted” tag is not clear enough for you, hovering over it will produce a drop-down menu that says “Promoted by Disney Pixar.”
Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research, said the ads reflects a smart move, since they give Twitter a source of revenue without drastically affecting the user experience.
“People will bear advertising as long as it lets them do what they want to do,” he said. “As with Google, users know someone has to pay. Users prefer it to be painless. Advertising that does not get in the way is generally welcomed.”
“With Promoted Trends, users will see time-, context- and event-sensitive trends promoted by our advertising partners. These Promoted Trends initially appear at the bottom of the Trending Topics list on Twitter and are clearly marked ‘Promoted.’ As conversations about the topic increase, Promoted Trends may move up the list.”
The company has lately been criticized for becoming wildly popular without the backing of a business plan. Last October, Twitter CEO Evan Williams told an audience at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that the company wanted to focus on developing the site rather than on a business model.