Twitter recently rolled out a form of Promoted Tweets for consumer users that could put competition for visibility on the social network at a premium, MarketingLand reported. While many of the specifics of the service are unclear, the tool could help marketers and other independent professionals more aggressively position themselves as industry authorities on the site.
For companies using content marketing, the new feature helps promote people within a company, potentially via the articles and blogs or infographics published on the brand site. Using social media marketing as a distribution channel for site content can help build authority. Highlighting specific content writers or using Promoted Tweets to reinforce the link between marketers and content on their sites can further these efforts, directing relevant Twitter users to branded employee accounts that they can follow and engage.
It’s currently unclear if Twitter has rolled out the feature to all users (or pehaps to those with specific follower counts) or if this was just a test of a service to come. Twitter has been active with paid marketing in 2012, pushing its Promoted Tweets tool for marketers throughout the year. Individual users who receive the self-promotional tool could find themselves in direct competition with marketers for visibility, which may prompt businesses to spend more on the channel.
Those who choose to focus heavily on organic social content, rather than paying for Promoted Tweets, can bolster their visibility on the site by sharing relevant images and links. Brafton highlighted data from Diffbot recently that found images and articles were the most popular types of content on the platform, representing 36 percent and 16 percent of shared Tweets, respectively.
