To advertise on Twitter, businesses once needed to be large enough to attract some level of global demand.
With no way of limiting ad displays to certain users in certain places, smaller businesses with one or perhaps a handful of locations saw no value in marketing themselves to more than 165-million users of the world’s foremost micro-blogging service. If you weren’t the advertising manager for Coca Cola, chances are you never had any contact with a Twitter employee.
But all that is about to change.
A new CEO, (whose last job, incidentally, was running Twitter’s ad platform as COO), and several new advertising products announced in recent months all confirm Twitter’s open pursuit of an ad-based business model, despite contrary statements made by now former-CEO Evan Williams in May. Aside from making big money for Twitter, the new features represent an opportunity for small businesses as well.
Speaking to the New York Times on Sunday, newly anointed chief tweeter Dick Costolo said Twitter has plans to launch a new self-service tool that will allow local businesses to buy advertising space on Twitter based on location. The new service, which Twitter hopes to launch by early in 2011, will allow businesses to advertise only in markets where they have a presence.
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