Sponsored Tweets

One of my favorite social media sites would undoubtedly be Twitter. Besides being both fun and challenging to write an insightful comment in 140 characters or less, it's a great way to network and find out what people around the world are doing or thinking. I follow many different types of people/groups be it friends, family, co-workers, advertising agencies and businesses. I also follow various celebrities that I find interesting (I know, guilty as charged.)

A couple of months ago, I started to notice that some of the celebrities I follow were posting "tweets" such as the following:

A bit confused, I started doing some digging. I then came to learn that these "#ads" were sponsored tweets and that there is an actual company (Sponsored Tweets) who specializes in getting celebrities to tweet these ads! Pretty brilliant stuff. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Kendra Wilkinson and Carrot Top are among clients willing to be paid just for tweeting. If you watch the quick video below, you can basically see exactly how Sponsored Tweets work.

By gaining this sort of endorsement, people who look up to the celebrity follow the link to the advertiser's site, learn about the product or idea and can potentially increase sales for the advertiser. Pretty simple!

Advertisers are also able to decipher how well their sponsored tweet did based on the metrics the company provides you with. See the below screen-grab; it basically shows you how many times your tweet sparked enough interest to follow the provided link. This way, you can see which Twitter user is the most effective at spreading your message. You also have the ability to 'favorite' a user and can do multiple 'tweet-transactions' through them over the course of time.

Sponsored Tweets also makes sure to point out on their Web site that:

"SponsoredTweets.com facilitates an open relationship between our Tweeters and Advertisers. The Tweeters that engage in a sponsored tweets program are required to disclose their relationship with marketers in their communications with other consumers. Our platform programmatically requires disclosure from all participants, applying standards and compliance system wide."

This disclosure makes me feel that they are being ethical and still business-savvy. A win-win.

Though I am sure that some may be skeptical and critical of this type of advertising, all I can say is .. why didn't I think of that first?!