4th
As a user I love Twitter. As a member who looks to continue investing in the Twitter ecosystem I think its potential is astounding.
As an ad product, I just don’t buy or understand their current strategy. Every now and again I check out the promoted Tweets. As an advertisers you get to promote a topic into the stream and then people talk about it with hashtags.
What I don’t understand is why. In doing this you let the community say whatever they want and that becomes the ad unit that users see. And we know that community discussions often descend into the lowest form of commentary.
As an advertiser or agency I would imagine that what I would care about the most is the ability to control copy, to control the message. I’m not sure the current incarnation of Twitter’s ad unit achieves that.
I think the screen shot says it all. And frankly this is not a one-off. It’s just the first time I’ve publicly posted such an image. I’ve seen much worse.
(note: I once told a senior friend at Twitter I’d try to only write about Twitter when I had positive things to say. He encouraged me to be more balanced and be willing to say where the company needed to improve.
He said when the community speaks up Twitter learns more. It’s in that spirit that I’m writing. Somebody on Twitter’s strategy / product team - please consider how to improve this product. And please don’t shoot the messanger ;-) )
What do you think? Anyone have examples of it working more effectively or think it’s the right strategy?
