Wednesday Twitter starting taking political ads, which users will see labeled as "promoted" (purchased) tweets, accounts and Twitter trends.
"Today’s news is a natural extension of the role Twitter is already playing in the political world," a Twitter spokesman said. "Twitter has become a more mainstream presence in politics, both domestically and around the world."
First already on the site with an ad: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Indeed, the site has "lined up a number of presidential candidates and national party election committees as preliminary advertisers," and is "building a dedicated political sales team" that will be run by Peter Greenberger, who did the same for Google for four years until recently.
To make it easier for users to distinguish political ads form other ads, Twitter says it's launching a "new purple 'Promoted' icon that will be used to identify political advertising on Twitter. Second, we’re adding the ability for campaigns who advertise on Twitter to include a full, FEC-compliant disclaimer when users hover over their Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends or Promoted Accounts."
Just in case there's any doubt of Twitter's clout already, there are 85 U.S. senators already using it, more than 360 members of the House of Representatives, 42 state governors and "more than 35 world leaders have Twitter accounts, including nearly half the heads of state and government of the G20."
The challenge won't be for Twitter to get political ads; the real test will be limiting normally wordy politicians to 140 characters. May the best and most concise tweets win.
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- Rep. Weiner says he didn't send Twitter photo
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