Pretty soon you will see ads (sponsored content) showing up in your Twitter streams.
Twitter announced plans to embed sponsored tweets in your stream which should start showing up within the next 8 weeks or so.
But it’s not just Twitter who’s entertaining the idea of sponsored content in the stream, Facebook has also been experimenting with running ads in your comments stream.
So apparently, social media platforms believe the best place to display ads to users is in the stream – not on the top and sides of pages like more traditional websites.
The idea of sponsored content showing up in user’s streams make sense to me because that’s where everyone’s attention is focused.
What seems like an obvious next step with this is charging higher rates for more productive user streams.
Not everyone’s profile (or stream) is going to deliver click thru rates and conversions the same. So for the more effective profiles, perhaps the social media networks can find a way to charge higher premiums. This would also perhaps mean that advertisers could chose who to target, and bid on prices to get impressions.
Thoughts?