Palm Beach Post tests Twitter ad units
A little creativity goes a long way
New ways to sell Twitter abound. PalmBeachPost.com plans to up-sell commercial Tweets such as lunch specials to a new page promoted in its dining section.
And Twitter "ad units" from Impact Engine are being tested at SignOnSanDiego.com. Here's a break-down of how it works, starting with the DIY model.
A great place to start is to follow local twitter feeds to find out what topics are especially active and what businesses may be willing to invest in online Twitter promotions.
At PalmBeachPost.com, online manager Chadi Irani noticed a number of restaurants tweeting specials and began to follow them by creating a Twitter list (for neo-twitterphiles, separate lists are a way to segregate interests you are following). He came up with 36 restaurants which actively Tweet their specials.
Starting this fall, PalmBeachPost will promote a page of Tweets for local specials, especially lunch, in the dining section of PBPulse, its local entertainment niche site and one of the best local dining sites we've seen.
Participating restaurants will pay $500 a month to have their daily specials appear by Twitter feed on the new page.
Internal promotions include a link from the Dining Page, which has 70,000 page views monthly and 300,000 ad impressions promoting "Today's lunch specials" throughout PalmBeachPost.com in the day-part two hours prior to lunch.
Because summer is the slow season in Palm Beach, the launch date has been held off until September, however, a number of the restaurants have indicated they will be signing up in the fall.
PalmBeachPost is also launching and ad unit that allows individual businesses to post and update live twitter feeds inside the ad unit.
For companies that like this idea, but don't have the development resources, Impact Engine has just launched a "Twitter ad-unit," which SignOnSanDiego.com is testing with its first client July 6, 2010.
The ad-unit can be created in different sizes and shapes; SignOnSanDiego.com's first ad-unit appears inline like news up-dates.
The unit pulls in the top 20 most popular Tweets based on key words selected and can accommodate up to five advertisers rotating through top, bottom and inline positions on the ad. The feeds update every 5 seconds, with only five or so showing at a time.
Feeds for the units can also be built to match articles, or to promote advertisers own Tweets.
SignOnSanDiego's first unit is a 180x560 "column" of real estate tweets sponsored by Prudential Realty. Impact Engine is asking $3 CPM for the unit. At their suggested retail price of $25 to $35 CPM, these units should be high margin as well.
Other ideas for Twitter unit sales include events such as film festivals and concerts that have a Twitter following, coupons and other deals.
Keywords
twitter, Facebook, Impact Engine, Palm Beach Post, social media
