Twitter’s Bad Idea
Twitter is searching for a way to make money — a prerequisite for a Bubble II IPO. An idea it’s been pushing since April is something called promoted tweets — auctioning the rights to place advertising at the top of popular Twitter streams.
Google places ads — why can’t Twitter? One big fat reason: Twitter’s ad imposes itself into a discussion among real people. It’s as if you held a dinner party and an uninvited stranger barged into your house screaming self-serving non sequitors — and you can’t get rid of him. A search ad has the potential to help you; a “conversation ad” is simply disruptive.
Promoted tweets appear to be directed at the B2B space. Only one problem: Forrester’s research indicates that Twitter possesses very limited influence over B2B transactions, at least in the technology space. Twitter influences one half as many Business Technology (BT) buyers as Facebook, and only a third that of LinkedIn. Promoted tweets are a bad idea on many levels — Twitter should scrap them and head back to the whiteboard in search of a less intrusive way to justify its irrational market valuation. I’d love to get your comments…