Los Angeles — Twitter, which has just put its feet into the advertising business last year, is now geared up to capitalize on the highly anticipated 2012 presidential election with advertisements exclusive created for politicians, through promoted tweets, trends and accounts. the company told Politico in an interview published today, and later confirmed to CNET.
With the Presidential election just around the corner, which means one thing, a battery of political ads invading every inch of our lives have just made their debut on Twitter.
Now brace yourself for a political bombardment, as the Republican presidential primary battle heats up, candidates and interest groups will now be able to make sure that their message is seen by everyone on Twitter.
The micro-blogging outfit will test the functionality tentatively with a small group of Presidential candidates, and then offer the service to every candidate.
Speaking to Politico, Twitter president of global revenue, Adam Bain, said that starting today, the company will, for the first time, allow politicians and political groups to place ads “in the timeline and in search” to help get their messages out to the social network’s users. Bain said that five campaigns have already signed up for the ads, but stopped short of naming them.
However, Twitter confirmed that the first presidential candidate to make use of a political promoted tweet is Mitt Romney advertising on the service.
“I can confirm that Twitter has begun accepting political advertising, starting today,” a Twitter spokesman told CNET in an e-mailed statement. “We have lined up a number of presidential candidates and national party election committees as preliminary advertisers.”
A Mitt Romney ad on Twitter. (Credit: Twitter) An example of a promoted political tweet, from Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.
The ads will appear as Promoted Tweets, which will pop up under certain search terms or in the timeline of Twitter users who follow a political campaign. Campaigns can also pay to appear on the top of search trends or to appear as suggested accounts to follow.
Beginning today, politicians of all zones are able to buy advertisements on Twitter. Politically flavored Promoted Tweets will be designated by a purple icon in the bottom left corner of the tweet.
“We are piloting the program with a small group of presidential candidates and national party committees,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. “These partners will be running ads in the coming week. We will expand the pilot to include other candidates and committees as we build up our political sales team.”
The company plans to spread to more campaigns once its political sales team is built up. Twitter, recently appointed Peter Greenberger, who worked on political advertising at Google for the past four years, as part of this effort.
Surprisingly, just last week, Twitter made the controversial decision to place Promoted Tweets in the timelines of people who do not even follow those brands — although the company makes an effort to match ads with a user’s perceived interests. For now, at least, political ads will only appear to that campaign’s followers or in searches.
In addition, campaigns that advertise on Twitter can also add a full, FEC-compliant disclaimer when users hover over their Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends or Promoted Accounts.
Five campaigns have already signed up, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
“Twitter is a leading platform for real-time participation and @MittRomney is constantly looking for ways to share his vision to turn around the economy,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
“We are thrilled to continue leading the way in using new technologies to connect with our supporters,” said DSCC spokesman Shripal Shah. “Republicans have launched an all out war on seniors and middle-class families with their reckless agenda and we are going to hold them accountable in every way we can.” Here is one of the committee’s first tweets, promoting President Obama’s “Buffet Rule.”
“I can see these new political products being adopted frequently for rapid response and fundraising around the big, unpredictable moments that happen with every campaign,” said Mindy Finn, a Republican media strategist with Engage DC.
Twitter offers three options to advertisers: Promoted Tweets, which pops up (with a designation making it clear they are not regular tweets) in the timelines of the advertiser’s followers and in search results on a given topic; Promoted Trends, which show up in the “Trends” box in the site’s right sidebar; and Promoted Accounts, which are included in the list of accounts Twitter suggests users should follow.
However, according to Bain, Promoted Tweets could be very essential to the political campaigns, since it works with the site’s search function.
“People are literally searching for topics and ideas as much as they are for names of campaigns,” Bain told Politico.
The importance of Twitter in political campaigns has only grown since Obama used social media in his 2008 election it was only a matter of time before political ads would hit Twitter. With Twitter now being integrated in major televised debates and other facets of political campaigning, it only makes sense for the company to start running political advertising.
The micro-blogging service Twitter, with a worldwide audience of about 100 million, has become a ubiquitous campaign promotional tool. Right now, 85 U.S. Senators use Twitter, and 360 members of the House of Representatives also have accounts. The vast majority of state governors — 42 of 50 — are on Twitter, too. And of course, all the current major presidential contenders are using the micro-blogging outfit.