Twitter Ramps up Ad Products

Leading microblogging site Twitter has long struggled with the need to raise marketing revenues without alienating its millions of users, for whom the plain interface and lack of intrusive internet marketing has always been an attractive feature.

Current advertising products such as Promoted Tweets (ordinary Tweets that advertisers pay to promote, which appear at the top of some twitter search pages)  and Promoted Trends (a similar concept in which Trending topics can be promoted, and will appear at the top of a Trending Topics list) are fairly subtle.  The tweets and trends are marked as "Promoted" but other than that are essentially the same as normal tweets or trends, with no flashing buttons or annoying jingles to be found.  

However, Twitter's ad revenues continue to need a significant boost, and this means creating new, more effective ad vehicles.  

That is because Twitter's ad offerings, which include Promoted Tweets and Trends, are fairly unobtrusive.  Now, according to sources, Twitter is planning to launch something called "Promoted Tweets to Followers", which will allow marketers to tweet their ad messages directly to users who follow particular brands, with the tweet appearing at the top of users' lists when they first log in to twitter.  Therefore, for example, Ford could tweet an advertising message that would automatically appear at the top of their followers' lists of tweets the next time they log in.  

Of course, brands can tweet to their followers any time they like, but this concept forces the tweet to the top of users timelines so whenever they log in next, it will be at the top.  So, all you tweeter out there - what do you think?  Inspired, intrusive or unnecessary?