Twitter Marketing, Advertising, and Spam: What Does the Future Hold?
Twitter is kind of fun, I will admit. I’m not a big user of it but there is something quite appealing about it. First of all, it is ridiculously simple to use, can be plugged into your blog and your Facebook page, and its 140 character limit makes it not particularly daunting to use. Ten seconds and you’re done.
Of course, you can’t really say a lot with 140 characters. It’s not really a substitute for a serious blog entry. But it’s all the rage, and bloggers like Robert Scoble are fully addicted, following thousands of other Twitter users for those choice tweets that are to the point and quickly accessible.
But the growing pains were inevitable. Silicon Alley Insider’s Vasanth Sridharan reported yesterday the apparent surge in followers for some high-profile Twitter users. The unwelcome infestation of spam may have arrived.
Twitter founder Biz Stone updated SAI with some explanations for the surge. One explanation given by Stone is that the notification emails were not sent for several hours on the weekend, but others are reporting that the adds are continuing into the week. There are also a series of new apps like TwitterTroll that allow for easier access to possible users to follow. Also, as Stone says, Twitter is just becoming more popular.
With this popularity and high-profile users, what are the possibilities for Twitter marketing and Twitter advertising?
Duncan Riley of Techcrunch reported that somebody had seen ads being tested on Twitter, but this was quickly scotched by Biz Stone and may have come through an app somebody was using with Twitter, or some other source. As Stone reported to SAI, “We’re not putting ads on Twitter.com. As far as I can tell, a customized background image had some folks confused and speculating.”
Well, Riley doesn’t look very good but he makes the point that ads are coming eventually. They’ll have to monetize, right?
Perhaps what is more interesting is finding ways for businesses to utilize Twitter marketing for their products. It’s easy to see companies like Southwest Airlines using Twitter for fare alerts, or other companies using it to announce new things and generate buzz. Plugging it into a blog or a front page to make quick announcements isn’t a bad idea. Any business with a blog strategy in place could augment it with Twitter.
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