It’s Official: Twitter Launches Promoted Accounts

Twitter has officially launched Promoted Accounts, a new advertising format that help brands gain more followers by being displayed in Twitter’s “Suggestions for You” feature. Just as important though, the company has begun testing syndication of Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends to third-party apps.
Promoted Accounts surfaced last week and was officially revealed by Twitter COO Dick Costolo at the IAB Mixx conference in New York. According to the company’s official announcement, Promoted Accounts utilizes algorithms that figure out whether you’d be interested in a specific promoted account before displaying it in the “Suggestions for You” section. Twitter’s example is Xbox, which will be displayed to users that follow gaming-related accounts, but aren’t following @xbox.
Promoted Accounts is in the testing phase, so only a “handful of companies” will have their Twitter accounts being promoted. It’s certain to expand over time if the tests prove successful.
Buried in Twitter’s announcement was another interesting tidbit, though; the company has officially begin testing Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends in third-party apps, starting with Hootsuite. The company has been preparing for the rollout of Promoted Tweets and Trends in third-party apps for several months now.
While both are referenced in the Twitter API, only select partners can utilize them, at least for now. It’s being billed as a way for third-party developers to monetize their apps. Twitter has become increasingly competitive with its developers, creating a lot of uncertainty around the Twitter platform. Twitter acquired Tweetie earlier this year and launched BlackBerry and Android apps.