Twitter Says Advertising Not A Top Priority

Today Reuters interview reveals that Twitter is perhaps no closer to monetizing the site with Ads than they were 6 months ago.  In fact, things like search, retweets, geo targeting are topping the list.  I think this is great news for online marketers, and represents a great opportunity to get started with Twitter advertising for your business, and I’ll share why.

Twitter Says Advertising Not A Top Priority

In an interview with Reuters, Twitter has top priorities before them, however advertising and site monetization isn’t among them.  I think this could represent a great opportunity for early adopters.  Advertising has been happening on Twitter for some time, if you have some discretionary funds, you can get started right away.  I’ll even share with you some ideas of what you can get started with.

Here’s the video:

What does this mean?

With Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed, the competitive landscape has changed a bit for Twitter.  Search has to remain a priority, and they probably want to solidify their alliances with some key search providers.  Generating a few million dollars in revenue with ads isn’t going to cut it if they don’t keep up with the search game.

If you were waiting for Twitter to come out with their advertising platform so you could test it out, this is a great opportunity for you to reconsider, and get started now.

How Can You Start Advertising on Twitter Now?

Consider one of the services in this Twitter advertising network review.  For my purposes I’ve found the first one to offer the best results, but your results may vary.  Setup an account at each one.  Fund your account, and do a test campaign.

The sooner you get familiar with these services the better position you’ll have over your competitors.  Here are a few ideas of how can use these 3rd party Twitter advertising networks to get started:

• If running PPC ads do a test to compare the click thru rates of Twitter ads vs your current PPC ads.  Early on, Twitter ads I ran were more economical and converted better (different markets will vary).
• If you have a signup (webform) to a special report or subscription. Make a special offer for those who come through Twitter, with a custom landing page.  Compare conversion numbers from other traffic sources.
• If you have a Geo target or can narrow to other profile targeted key-phrases TwittAd.com actually supports advertisers who want to target profiled in this way.

The point is, Twitter will be a while before they launch an ad network.  Who knows, perhaps there strategy it to observe 3rd party ad networks, and acquire the best one.  If you get started now, you’ll likely be ahead of your competitors, and have little learning curve when Twitter does finally come on board.

Am I off base?  Will you start advertising on Twitter?  Why or why not?  Chime in below.

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