Twitter "Promoted" account tweets to appear in mobile timelines

Twitter is rolling out a new advertising option for mobile devices. Advertisers will now be able to send a tweet into mobile Twitter app users' timelines with a "Promoted" tag and follow button appearing below the tweet. The option has been in beta testing mode for some time now, and today the company is extending it to all advertisers.

The promoted tweets should start appearing in more and more mobile user timelines starting today. This new advertising offering fills a gap in Twitter's portfolio of promotions services to third-party companies looking to engage with and offer products to users on the social media platform. The new feature is analogous to the "Who to Follow" section on the browser version of Twitter, which lets advertisers pay to be featured there as promoted accounts.

Twitter says 72% of its userbase are more likely to buy products and services from brands they interact with on Twitter. Moreover — and more to the point — 76% of Twitter's users are on mobile. That's not to say those users never use the service through a browser, but mobile is definitely an arena that hasn't yet been fully tapped. The challenge of course is integrating advertising in light of highly limited screen real estate without mucking up the user experience.

The new promoted accounts in the mobile timeline should allow advertisers to target specific regions and other demographic silos. Anytime someone clicks a link in a promoted account tweet, the advertiser is charged a fee. There is no ongoing service fee otherwise, Twitter says.

What do you think of this advertising option as an advertiser? And more importantly, how do you feel about it as a user? Talk to us in the comments.

SOURCE: Twitter