Why Trends Are More Powerful Than Ads

After the launch of promoted tweets, Twitter intends to leverage one of its primary assets - celebrity accounts.

Before, advertising was limited to media such as TV, radio, and print. Today, social media platforms are making the Internet a destination-location for advertisers and consumers alike. Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are the reason why a person who doesn't even have an email account still goes online. Indeed, Twitter is one of the most-used media of communication nowadays, so it's a no-brainer if a free service like this will monetize its service through ads. After all, free television moved in a similar way through TV commercials.

In a recent interview with NYmag , Twitter CEO Dick Costolo explains how the social platform will monetize its service. Twitter's promoted tweets were launched recently and users didn't seem to mind if these ads were somewhat disguised as ordinary tweets. It only shows that Twitter's recent foray to monetize the service is paying up as long as they don't overdo it. Costolo aims to use celebrities who are considered influencers to catapult ads to their followers without alienating followers of a celebrity such as Charlie Sheen or Justin Bieber. If Twitter wants to put hair conditioner ads on Justin Bieber's tweets than they can. Twitter intends to use a frictionless approach, which means that they might try inserting organic ads on every celebrity's tweet. Essentially, "frictionless" in this sense means presenting ads in a discreet manner. Arguably, the most discreet way of promoting a product or a service on Twitter would be using hashtags. Wouldn’t you agree?


While this might be a good thing to Twitter in order to maintain its service, the essence of viral marketing might be a goner here. We all know that if a trend is all over the Twittersphere, it spreads like wildfire on other media whether it's social or traditional. The notion of social media being a two-way communication between a consumer and a brand is not yet passe. The concern here however is that when you start shoving a product or an ad down people's throats or smartphones, it becomes invasive due to the interruption. Reality check: trends influence people and ads interrupt them.

Nonetheless, people won’t quit using Twitter, people still watch free TV, right? People won't mind the promoted tweets and ad-glazed celebrity tweets. Social platforms run on user-generated content to make something viral, and there's a reason why Twitter has a Trending List on the user interface - trends are more powerful than ads.