Twitter, the popular micro-blogging platform, said on Tuesday that it will be pursuing ads outside of Twitter for the first time, with plans to sell Promoted Tweets on the popular news reader app Flipboard as well as on the Yahoo Japan website.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the company will permit advertisers who are already buying ads on the service to start running Promoted Tweet ad units on other people’s apps and sites that display tweets, with undisclosed revenue sharing between Twitter and partner websites/apps.
Here’s an example of a Nissan Promoted Tweet on Flipboard. As you can see, the Promoted Tweet will have the same look and feel that is native to the Flipboard experience.
These Promoted Tweets will soon start appearing in a designated section inside Flipboard where a user’s Twitter content is shown.
According to a blog post announcing the deal, 185 billion “Tweet impressions” were displayed outside Twitter’s own site and third-party apps in the third quarter of 2014, representing an ample opportunity for advertisers.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, Twitter previewed its newest plan at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month.
Re/code learned that Twitter’s ad team will be working with advertisers on a case-by-case basis “to manually expand Twitter ad buyers to other platforms” before the new ad initiative becomes an automated process.
Company CEO Disk Costolo has been feeling the heat from Wall Street investors who have been calling for his ousting amid doubts that he can successfully monetize Twitter’s monthly active user base of 284 million people while at the same time persuade more people to sign up for the service.
Over the past few weeks, the company rolled out features like an instant timeline that automatically curates tweets for new users, the ability to share 30-second clips, a ‘while you were away’ section on mobile and more.
The company is scheduled to post its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday afternoon.
Source: Twitter via The Wall Street Journal