Twitter Introduces Promoted Accounts

Twitter is now ready to expand its revenue-generation efforts and is unveiling its third advertising product from the "promoted" line, Promoted Accounts. The new ad product will enable advertisers to maximize the exposure of their accounts by having them suggested to users as part of the "Who to Follow" feature.

"When we launched Promoted Tweets back in April, we said that we would be doing lots of experimenting and iterating, as is typical with everything else at Twitter. Since then, we’ve done and learned a lot," Twitter said.

"Today, we’re entering a new phase in our efforts. We are launching Promoted Accounts, a new ad product that gives added value to Twitter users," the company announced.

Promoted Accounts is exactly what it sounds like, suggestions of Twitter accounts to follow. Companies can pay to have any of their accounts be presented to users.

The crucial part, says Twitter, is that the suggestions will still be based on the users' interest and thus, hopefully, relevant to them. Promoted Accounts will still have to go through the same process as regular accounts that get suggested, except perhaps the part where they are large enough.

Twitter doesn't really explain what is the major difference between paying to have an account promoted or doing it organically. If a certain account is deemed relevant to a user, it should be suggested anyway, so why pay for it?

The new feature is still in testing with only a handful of companies, so most users are unlikely to stumble upon Promoted Accounts.

"We will also make our Promoted Products available through our partners for the first time," Twitter also said, a major announcement that got sidelined with the launch of Promoted Accounts.

Twitter made a second announcement that is equally as important, the Promoted Products are now available to third-parties. This means that Twitter clients and any services that leverage the API can embed Promoted Tweets, Trends and so on and get a revenue share with Twitter.