Twitter Expands Advertising

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has a lot a faith in his product. He believes its existing format is enough to integrate into the social-TV experience. He does not believe he needs e-commerce or brand-sympathy analysis to increase revenue. The way he intends to continue his company’s growth is by taking what it already does well and doing more of it.

That includes advertising. Costolo plans to expand both the number of advertisers Twitter works with and the amount of geographic area they target. He says that since Twitter users have not expressed any dissent about promoted Tweets showing up on their pages, there is no reason to change this strategy. These “promoted tweets” are sent out by companies to a wide range of users, regardless of whether they follow the company. So far, user interactions with these Tweets have been high.

Although Costolo has preached about keeping the status quo, he admits that the current brand pages are not perfect. He is concerned that brands who utilize Twitter as a customer-service tool have pages that look like the “transcript of a company call center,” and upgrades will be offered. Companies who change over will have more control over their page aesthetic and Tweet visibility. However, it is rumored that the new pages are exclusive to advertisers who currently spend over $25,000 on their Twitter accounts.

Costolo has mentioned before that he has big plans for Twitter, which he claims is much more than a “media company.” We are interested to see how his growing-without-changing strategy pays off, and if companies are willing to pay for the new brand pages.

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