During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a few days ago, Twitter demoed an ad product they’re currently still developing, one that will put tweets from users into brand campaigns on the platform.
So far advertisers have had to rely on celebrities and influencers to promote their brand through tweets, something that can be costly and may not have the desired results, as was seen a few weeks ago when numerous celebrities tweeted the same promotional message instead of improvising a little. With the new ad product, advertisers can instead peruse through a “brand enthusiast library” that houses a collection of tweets shining casting favourable light on a product a brand wants to promote. Brands will then be able to pick and choose which tweets they want to use for their campaign.
Now before you get your pitchforks out and light up your torches over the blatant use of your tweets, if you’ve agreed to the Twitter TOS, you’ve already given permission to Twitter to collate your tweets and chuck some of them into a “brand enthusiast library. However before your Tweet is used for promotional services via this new ad product, Twitter will Direct Message the author of the tweet and ask permission on behalf of the brand who wish to repost it.
For example, if store XYZ wants to start a new campaign on Twitter and opt for this ad product they’ll be given a repository of tweets that may be similar in content to this: “OMG #XYZ haz de best products #Cool”. If for some god awful reason XYZ look upon that as a favourable tweet, twitter will then contact the illiterate author of that tweet and ask for their permission on behalf of XYZ to promote and feature the tweet. How exactly the tweet will be featured isn’t clear yet. It may appear as a featured tweet in your timeline or as part of a featured post from the respective brand.
It’s quite likely however that accounts whose tweets are private will be exempt from having their Tweets stored in a “brand enthusiast library”.
Source: Digiday
