How Does Twitter Make Money?

Twitter introduced advertising in order to make profit. The ways to generate money for the company are Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts.

Twitter has made the first step towards serious monetization service through the launch of commercials called "Promoted Tweets" (promoted or sponsored tweets). In this platform, ads are not anything but tweets which displayed depending on engine search words via Twitter. Although in the first instance these ads are be implemented only on search results pages, Twitter has announced plans to expand their display and the pages that contain users' personal tweets.

Promoted tweets are placed at the top of the page that contains the search results with a text in smaller font indicating that they are sponsored "Promoted by X". One promoted tweet is not guaranteed to be displayed for a long time - if the tweet does not have much impact (the impact is called "resonance" and is measured by the number of replies, clicks and quantifiable factors), it will either be withdrawn or the company which initiated it will not pay for it.

The great advantage of Promoted Tweets is their design, identical to the regular tweets except tiny text at their base that will indicate that they are commercial detail that few users will notice it - which means that if the advert is honest, compelling and has a conversational tone (ultra-characteristic thing of all messages on Twitter), people will interact with it in a manner similar to regular tweets.

As an extension of the Promotes Tweets platform, a new option becomes available: Promoted Trends. Advertising with Promoted Trends drives the conversations and interest around a brand product. Users see time, context, and event-sensitive trends promoted by Twitter’s advertising partners.

Another facility which makes profit to the company is Promoted Accounts. This option helps introduce an even wider variety of accounts people may enjoy. These accounts are suggested based on a user’s public list of whom they follow.

In 2010, when launching the Promoted Tweets platform, Twitter made a profit by $45 million. For 2013, there are reports that Twitter’s profit will reach $400 million. Twitter has over 250 million users.

Published on 11th Jan 2013 @ 12:56 AM