Micro-blogging service Twitter has unveiled its long-awaited plan to include advertising on its site.
The company said it was planning to introduce advertising last November, something it reiterated in March. Now it has released details of how advertisers will be allowed to target Twitter’s users, who back in February were sending over 50 million tweets a day.
Firms will be able to buy “promoted tweets” which will appear on the site’s search results pages, with only one such tweet being shown at any one time.
“It’s non-traditional, it’s easy, and it makes a ton of sense for Twitter,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in a blog post, admitting the company had a “stubborn insistence on a slow and thoughtful approach to monetization”.
To start with, advertising will be restricted to a few initial partners including Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America.
Stone said: “We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you. We’ll attempt to measure whether the Tweets resonate with users and stop showing Promoted Tweets that don’t resonate.
“Promoted Tweets will be clearly labelled as “promoted” when an advertiser is paying, but in every other respect they will first exist as regular Tweets and will be organically sent to the timelines of those who follow a brand.
“Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, re-tweeting, and favouriting.”
The service will be expanded once Twitter has a better understanding of “user experience and advertiser value”.