Twitter is about to introduce advertising opportunities on its UK social media site.

From October, brands and marketers will be able to offer promoted tweets, trends and accounts on the microblogging site. 

US companies have been able to send ads to its followers since April 2010. This month Twitter announced plans to allow US firms to show ads to users who aren’t their followers. 

Twitter defended the plans, saying that “Promoted tweets to users like your followers” will analyse the followers of a company’s feed and target users with similar interests and friend lists. 

For now, the scheme in the UK looks like it will be limited to followers of a brand or company. Mediaweek reports that brands pay for a tweet to appear in a user’s timeline and will also be able to promote their account and pay for subjects to appear as trends.

Twitter has been in negotiation with media agencies for a number of months and is thought to be offering bundled deals. One agency source has claimed that Twitter is asking for six-figure sums. 

There is also industry speculation that Twitter may engage in localised marketing and roll out ads on a more regional basis.  

The attitude of US consumers to advertising on Twitter is encouraging. Only 10.9% of Twitter users said promoted tweets were annoying, according to a survey by market research company Lab42 in August 2011. The survey also found that 14% of people said they had retweeted a promoted tweet. 

Posted by 

Neil Turner