Twitter To Offer Facebook-Style Branded Pages

Micro-blogging site Twitter could soon offer dedicated Facebook-style pages, as part of an attempt to further tap into and monetise the business activity taking place on its platform.

Sources familiar with the project told Marketing Magazine that Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo and president of revenue Adam Bain are championing the idea, as part of an attempt to create fresh revenue streams. The pages would allow companies to tout their brands and deliver tailored content to their followers.

New revenue streams

Twitter currently makes money from Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts, as well as through deals with specific partners that offer them access to its Firehose API. The company launched its first ads on the platform in the US in April 2010, where its partners include Starbucks.

“I think it would be very useful for brands to have a page that is richer than the current profile page, especially for users who will visit the page of the brand for the first time,” said Rick Mans from Capgemini, speaking to ReadWriteWeb.

“That would be the added value for me: having a broader introduction to the brand than just the limited profile Twitter now offers and offer information beyond the traditional Tweet. Integration of branded pages with the existing ecosystem of tools could be interesting.”

Twitter offered no additional comment on the rumours.

Monetising Twitter

There has been much speculation about Twitter’s plans to increase its revenue over the last few years, particularly after the company’s former CEO Evan Williams announced that the micro-blogging site would begin monetisation at a developer conference in San Francisco last April.

The company thumbed its nose at a $6 billion (£3.7 billion) tender offer from Google last December, and Costolo, who took the helm as CEO from co-founder Williams in October, has frequently downplayed acquisition talks, noting that Twitter’s goal is to remain independent and grow a large business.

Meanwhile, one of Twitter’s most successful monetisation strategies, Promoted Tweets, lets advertisers pay $100,000 to push their products in searches and trending topics. The ads started in searches on Twitter.com and extended to searches executed through Twitter partners.

“Over the years, we’ve resisted introducing a traditional web advertising model because we wanted to optimise for value before profit,” said co-founder Biz Stone at the time, adding that Promoted Tweets is “non-traditional, it’s easy, and it makes a ton of sense for Twitter.”

A recent poll of eWEEK readers found that Facebook pages were considered to be the most effective social media channel for organisations to interact with their customers, alongside LinkedIn.