70% of UK Twitter users unhappy with ‘promoted tweets’
70% of UK Twitter users unhappy with ‘promoted tweets’
Research by a UK discount website has found that just 24% of Twitter users want to see promotional tweets in their feed, with 68% admitted to being ‘unhappy’ with the development.
Twitter.com founder, Biz Stone, announced earlier this week on the Twitter blog that the company was unveiling ‘promoted tweets’ as a means of monetising the popular 140-character service, with initial partners including Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America, with ‘promoted tweets’ by these companies set to appear in search pages on the social networking site.
A study of 1,219 people was conducted to gain feedback about the tweeted advertisements by city deal website, www.Groupola.com, and has found that initial feelings about the marketing move are not positive.
Initial reaction is negative
One quarter, 24%, of UK Twitter users said they were ‘happy’ with the move, compared to 68% that said they were unhappy with the fact their Twitter experience would start to include commercial tweets. The remaining 8% said they were interested to see how the commercial inclusion would play out.
Despite the number of users that said they were unhappy with promoted tweets, when asked the question, “in what other ways, besides promoted tweets would Twitter be able to monetise?” 74% of Brits admitted that they ‘didn’t know’.
A further 17% said they thought Twitter could monetise by having the site ‘sponsored’ by brands in regional areas, providing them with targeted location-based brand promotion depending on the region the user is in when they sign up. Just 2% said they thought Twitter could charge users to use the service.
Mark Pearson, managing director of Groupola.com commented: “The Twitter team have clearly had some difficulty coming to terms with the fact that to survive, they have to monetise. It’s as simple as that.
Struggle to monetise popularity
“Twitter really is the media’s social networking darling, and for something this big to have been valued at $1 billion and go on existing without some form of revenue stream is unwise and has been baffling for all other entrepreneurs.”
He continued: “I believe this could work out very well for Twitter and should help the investors start to see a return on their money. As with any change, there will be resistance for a short period of time, but I think the level of loyalty Twitter users show will soon outweigh the negativity surrounding the move.
“From an online business perspective, it will be extremely interesting to see how well the initial brands fare through their promoted tweets, as I could definitely see the idea of promoting our daily city-specific deals through Twitters as a viable marketing option to aid in the promotion of group buying discounts.”
Groupola.com, with launched in February, works because of ‘group buying power’, a new-to-the-UK way to save money, that its providers said will give users the ability to save money on restaurants, spa days, beauty and hairdressing, experience days, sport and leisure activities, theatre, concerts and much more.
