5 Rules for Buying and Selling Advertising on Twitter

Can you buy a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes.

Can you sell a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes, but...

Here's some background to guide your decisions.

Rules for Sellers

With high jobless rates, millions are eager to make money from Twitter; or justify the time spent on Twitter to gain followers. Since Twitter is seemingly simple, millions are incentivized to try. But...

1. Do you have 50,000 followers? Or at least 20,000? Advertisers have no interest to buy a smaller audience.
2. Can you tweet frequently enough to give advertisers the impressions that they need?
3. Can you deliver enough clicks to beat AdWords? Does the rate you charge beat Adwords' average of $0.50 per click?
4. Assuming that you can deliver 100 clicks per day for an ad buyer, who will sell the ads? How much will it cost to sell the ads?
5. At $50 per day, does this revenue cover your selling cost and tweeting time?

Like any media, building the circulation, selling ads, and distributing tweets is a fulltime job. Do you have the will, skills, and tenacity?

Why Buy Ads on Twitter

Why would marketers buy tweets as ads on Twitter?

Twitter is the first comprehensive marketing tool that allows a marketer to track the entire marketing funnel. (ed: You read this first, here. No doubt, other blogs and journalists will copy and fail to attribute the source. Sad ;-)

• Gain suspects as followers
• Call to action through clicks on tweets
• Digital word-of-mouth through satisfied customers

No other media provides countable returns at the top, bottom, and through the funnel. It's not only the cheapest marketing, but the most comprehensive. No other media, TV, radio, newspapers, AdWords, coupons, deliver the full funnel.

As most Twitter users have learned, it's not easy to get huge followings. Further, it's very difficult to gain clicks on tweets. Most tweets are simply ignored. Without followers and clicks, can one gain retweets and digital word-of-mouth?

This is the role of a Twitter network.

Rules for Buying Twitter Ads

Hundreds of Twitter networks claim to deliver. A strong Twitter ad network helps marketers gain on all aspects of the marketing funnel, i.e. followers, clicks, and re-tweets. Here's what to look for:

1. Huge followings and tweet frequency matters. Without both, advertisers cannot gain enough impressions to earn followers, clicks, and re-tweets.
2. Avoid the hard sell. Keep your tweets entertaining and educational. Twitter is a social network, not condusive to a one-tweet close.
3. Can you target with relevant ads? Not in the traditional sense of a purchased mailing list. Those who say otherwise, don't understand Twitter. They are selling what you want to hear. The majority of people follow on Twitter as a social gesture, not necessarily common interests. Further, the Twitter SUL (Suggested User List) pushes newbies to follow random accounts. However, the clicks are targeted since users opt-in on tweets that interest them. Thus, #1 above rules completely when applied to Twitter marketing.
4. Should you use a random third-party ad system that sends tweets on unknown accounts? Like all advertising, it's better to associate with known parties when sending your ads as tweets. Rather than 20,000 accounts with 50 followers each; it's better to use 50 accounts with 20,000 followers each. The latter lends more credibility, brand image; and thus better results.
5. Many tweets is better than one repetitive tweet. As stated in rule 2, keep the conversation entertaining and interesting.

Should you buy Twitter ads?

Yes.

It's inexpensive, more comprehensive in terms of measured ROI; and in the hands of the right Twitter network - incredibly effective.

Have you had success with Twitter marketing?

5 Rules for Advertising on Twitter

Can you buy a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes.

Can you sell a tweet as an ad on Twitter? Yes, but...

Here's some background to guide your decisions.

Rules for Sellers

With high jobless rates, millions are eager to make money from Twitter; or justify the time spent on Twitter to gain followers. Since Twitter is seemingly simple, millions are incentivized to try. But...

1. Do you have 50,000 followers? Or at least 20,000? Advertisers have no interest to buy a smaller audience.
2. Can you tweet frequently enough to give advertisers the impressions that they need?
3. Can you deliver enough clicks to beat AdWords? Does the rate you charge beat Adwords' average of $0.50 per click?
4. Assuming that you can deliver 100 clicks per day for an ad buyer, who will sell the ads? How much will it cost to sell the ads?
5. At $50 per day, does this revenue cover your selling cost and tweeting time?

Like any media, building the circulation, selling ads, and distributing tweets is a fulltime job. Do you have the will, skills, and tenacity?

Why Buy Ads on Twitter

Why would marketers buy tweets as ads on Twitter?

Twitter is the first comprehensive marketing tool that allows a marketer to track the entire marketing funnel. (ed: You read this first, here. No doubt, other blogs and journalists will copy and fail to attribute the source. Sad ;-)

• Gain suspects as followers
• Call to action through clicks on tweets
• Digital word-of-mouth through satisfied customers

No other media provides countable returns at the top, bottom, and through the funnel. It's not only the cheapest marketing, but the most comprehensive. No other media, TV, radio, newspapers, AdWords, coupons, deliver the full funnel.

As most Twitter users have learned, it's not easy to get huge followings. Further, it's very difficult to gain clicks on tweets. Most tweets are simply ignored. Without followers and clicks, can one gain retweets and digital word-of-mouth?

This is the role of a Twitter network.

Rules for Buying Twitter Ads

Hundreds of Twitter networks claim to deliver. A strong Twitter ad network helps marketers gain on all aspects of the marketing funnel, i.e. followers, clicks, and re-tweets. Here's what to look for:

1. Huge followings and tweet frequency matters. Without both, advertisers cannot gain enough impressions to earn followers, clicks, and re-tweets.
2. Avoid the hard sell. Keep your tweets entertaining and educational. Twitter is a social network, not condusive to a one-tweet close.
3. Can you target with relevant ads? Not in the traditional sense of a purchased mailing list. Those who say otherwise, don't understand Twitter. If they check their followers, it shows a rainbow of interests. Saying targeted, they are selling what you want to hear. The majority of people follow on Twitter as a social gesture, not common interests. Further, the Twitter SUL (Suggested User List) pushes newbies to follow random accounts. However, the clicks are targeted since users opt-in on tweets that interest them. Thus, #1 above rules completely when applied to Twitter marketing.
4. Should you use a third-party ad system that sends tweets on unknown accounts? Like all advertising, it's better to associate with known parties when sending your ads as tweets. Rather than 20,000 accounts with 50 followers each; it's better to use 50 accounts with 20,000 followers each. The latter lends more credibility, brand image; and thus better results.
5. Many tweets is better than one repetitive tweet. As stated in rule 2, keep the conversation entertaining and interesting.

Should you buy Twitter ads?

Yes.

It's inexpensive, more comprehensive in terms of measured ROI; and in the hands of the right Twitter network - incredibly effective.

Have you had success with Twitter marketing?

For TechCrunch, Twitter = Traffic (A Statistical Breakdown)

Ed: Techcrunch finally gets 25% of the real Twitter story. Will the rest of the media get over the "p*nis-envy" and wake up to the new reality of web 3.0?

Some people use Twitter to organize street protests in Tehran. Some people use it to share their daily thoughts and observation. But it is increasingly becoming clear that one of the most powerful ways people use Twitter is as a social information filter and link distributor. Over the past few months, TechCrunch has experienced the power of this micro-media firsthand as the percentage of traffic we get from Twitter has grown to the point that it is now our second largest source of outside traffic after Google. In the past 30 days, Twitter accounted for 9.7 percent of all traffic to Techcrunch.com, up from 1.8 percent six months ago. This is out of millions of visits.

Looking at our Google Analytics numbers, here is the breakdown of visits to TechCrunch by source over the past 30 days:

Top Sources of Traffic To TechCrunch
1. Google: 32.7%
2. Direct: 22.7%
3. Twitter: 9.7%
4. Digg: 7.4%
5. Techmeme: 2.4%
6. Other: 25.1%

Twitter has been rising up that chart, just recently surpassing Digg. TechCrunch is certainly not typical of most Websites, but this data certainly shows the potential of Twitter to generate traffic. A large portion of that traffic comes from the TechCrunch account on Twitter, which has nearly 715,000 followers (it is one of the accounts suggested to new users). For many people, Twitter is replacing their RSS readers. One of the ways we use that account is to Tweet out links to our stories, which then spread virally as followers retweet those links. Retweets are becoming a new type of link currency. We are big believers in retweets (in fact, there is now a retweet button at the bottom of every post).

About a month ago we started using Awe.sm, which lets us send out our own custom short links (http://tcrn.ch) and track how much traffic we get from them. About 73 percent of our Twitter traffic comes from people clicking on an http://tcrn.ch short link. Another 23 percent comes directly from Twitter.com via other short links such as bit.ly’s.

We can also approximate how much Twitter traffic comes from desktop and mobile clients. At least 44 percent of Twitter traffic comes from clients, and that counts people clicking directly on http://tcrn.ch links from those clients. So the true number is easily more than half.

For us, and I’d argue increasingly for other large Websites as well, Twitter is not just about micro-media. The most powerful Tweets are those which point elsewhere. Or to put it another way, the shortened link may just be the most powerful type of micro-media there is. Those retweeted links are turning Twitter into a social broadcast media that rivals any other on the Web.

(Photo credit: Flickr/Brett Weinstein)

Michelob Joins Keg Party at Twitter, but Will Its Tweets Draw Heat?

Trouble May Follow A-B, Given Age-Verification Flap That Felled Bud.TV

by Jeremy Mullman Published: June 01, 2009

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Twitter users who opt to follow the online musings of Anheuser-Busch's Michelob may be surprised to receive a quick direct-message inquiry from the beer brand asking if they're of legal drinking age.

Being asked how old they are isn't likely to deter underage drinkers desperate to read Michelob's tweets, which focus on beer styles and food pairings and the like. But it does underscore how carefully alcohol marketers -- required by industry guidelines to limit ad messages to venues where at least 70% of the audience is of legal drinking age -- are treading into Twitter.

Michelob is A-B's only tweeting brand, while its chief rival, MillerCoors, has yet to use Twitter at all for marketing purposes. "It's appealing to us, but we're looking at how we'd wash it against the marketing code," said a MillerCoors spokesman.

Tom Shipley, senior director-digital marketing at A-B, said the brewer is using Twitter "because our adult consumers increasingly want to have a conversation with us." He said asking would-be followers how old they are is consistent with the age checks the brewer uses on its branded websites.

Age-verification concerns with online media have flummoxed A-B before. Its much-touted Bud.tv site, on which it spent millions creating its own content, was ultimately undermined by a vigorous firewall that checked viewers' age claims against databases of state IDs, in some cases keeping out of-age consumers. Yet activists and state attorneys general said A-B wasn't doing enough to keep underage users off the site, leaving the No. 1 brewer in a lose-lose situation.

'Lack of dignity'
It wouldn't be hard for brewers and distillers to provoke a similar backlash regarding social networks. "Twitter is for kids, and this is a way to put these brand names in their faces," said George Hacker, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which lobbies for more restrictions on alcohol marketing. "This is just the latest example of a lack of real dignity in the industry."

And that's in response to relatively few efforts from older-skewing brands such as Michelob and Beam Global's upscale Tres Generaciones line extension of its Sauza tequila brand, which retails for upward of $40 a bottle.

Beam, which adopted more-stringent codes for its marketing in 2007, has created a Twitter persona for deceased tequila patriarch Don Cenobio Sauza.

Peter Wijk, senior director-global tequilas at Beam, said Twitter is a perfect fit with Beam's word-of-mouth-driven approach to brand marketing, which puts the company's entire marketing budget in the service of creating chatter about its brands. "We want to have brands people want to talk about, and social media is an excellent way to start a dialogue," he said.

But can Beam, which earned plaudits in 2007 by adopting tougher marketing standards than the spirits industry requires, do that without skirting its own guidelines? Mr. Wijk said it can, noting that Twitter provides the company with demographics information that shows that more than 75% of the people reading its communications are of legal drinking age.

Still, he said, social media is not a risk-free proposition for brewers and distillers. Sauza, he said, has spawned a series of fan pages on Facebook and other corners of the internet, and there's no guarantee those sites will show the brand in a good light, or to the right audience. "You do let go of some control in social media," he said. "In our industry, that can be somewhat worrying."

Twitter Proves Its Worth as a Killer App for Local Businesses

New Orleans Pizza Joint, Chicago Yogurt Chain See Results From Promos on Microblogging Service

by Abbey Klaassen  Published: May 18, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- All those brands trying to figure the ROI of Twitter? They might do well to follow the lead of the local pizza joint.

NAKED PIZZA: Recent Twitter promotion brought in 150% of a recent day's business.

Naked Pizza, a New Orleans healthful-pizza shop that's hoping to go national -- Mark Cuban is a backer -- has been marketing itself via the microblogging service. And recently it has started to track Twitter-spurred sales at the register. In a test run April 23, an exclusive-to-Twitter promotion brought in 15% of the day's business.

"Every phone call was tracked, every order was measured by where it came from, and it told us very quickly that Twitter is useful," said Jeff Leach, the restaurant's co-founder. "Sure, there's the brand marketing and getting-to-know-you stuff. ... But we wanted to know: Can it make the cash register ring?"

Mr. Leach is one of many small businesses using Twitter as a marketing tool -- and his group could turn out to be a lucrative market for the fast-growing site if other local entrepreneurs have similar experiences.

Twitter's real-time messaging service is turning out to be a boon to local establishments, who are starting to get onboard -- mostly because the message pops into users' Twitter feeds and they're close enough to act on it. For Mr. Leach, who is targeting people within a three-mile radius of his store, that's key. He's gone so far as to erect a billboard outside his store publicizing Naked Pizza's Twitter handle (which got him written up in TechCrunch). After that, Twitter contacted him; he's going to be working with the company to beta test some applications for small businesses.

Low barrier to entry
Twitter has a golden trait that appeals to small businesses: It's easy.

"It's simpler than a blog, than setting up a Facebook or MySpace page," said Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, which specializes in the local-marketing sector. "It's very much like e-mail. And e-mail, from small-business standpoint, has been one of the most effective marketing tools." The social nature of it is also appealing: Consumers are already using Twitter as a question-and-answer recommendation service and to forward ("retweet") messages they receive from brands.

Michael Farah, founder and CEO of Berry Chill, a yogurt shop with three Chicago locations, has been using Twitter to send out "Sweet Tweets" -- promos that require users to show they're Twitter followers of the store. In a month, he's logged 700 followers and, he said, "sweet tweets" haven't diminished his daily sales.

"Our last big promotion we gave away 1,100 yogurts -- $5,500 worth of product -- but sales were the same as the day before," he said. "The people who were existing customers standing in line attracted people who hadn't tried it."

Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligence

Add the location-based technology nearly every mobile device will soon have, and many say it'll really earn its keep as a killer local app.

Potential
"The reality is Twitter's got all sorts of business models available to it," said Todd Chaffee, general partner at Institutional Venture Partners and a Twitter investor. "We're putting together monetization framework, things like features for commercial accounts, which could be for global companies all the way down to local companies." He said the business model will be largely driven by the creativity and needs of the businesses using it.

Naked Pizza's wish list includes analytics tools that help it understand the most effective times of the day or week to deliver promotional messages, much like an e-mail-marketing-services provider would, and other applications geared toward helping consumers find local offers. Mr. Leach, who spends up to $60,000 a year on direct mail and almost $2,500 a year on e-mail-marketing services, said he'd gladly pay a monthly fee for services like those.

In the next 90 days, he said, he's aiming to sign up 5,000 followers that have city of New Orleans as their location. As he puts it: "That's 5,000 people I don't have to mail a postcard to."

How Eminem's Marketing Team Is Using Twitter to Build Buzz - Twitter Results

Oblique Tweets About Fictional Rehab Facility Heighten Mystery Around New Album 'The Relapse'

by Charlie Moran 
Published: May 18, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Musicians from Q-Tip to Jimmy Eat World have discovered Twitter as a DIY means of engaging their fans, using the conversational medium to not only let people know they'll be in Tulsa this summer but make them feel personally involved enough to actually show up. Now one of the best-selling artists of the past decade is using it in a very different way -- and building up substantial buzz for what may be the first album of the year to go platinum.

Eminem

In the world of hip-hop, a five-year absence is an eternity. So for Eminem's new album, "The Relapse," the marketing team at Aftermath/Interscope Records has mounted an audacious campaign that playfully smears the lines between the rapper's troubled past and the nightmarish, fictionalized world of his latest work. By using Twitter to dispense short, often disturbing thoughts and links to multimedia components revolving around a mental institution, they've helped make the album the most highly anticipated hip-hop release of the year -- and set it up for a sequel in the second half of 2009.

Paul Rosenberg, the nine-time Grammy-winning rapper's manager, said the marketing effort isn't necessarily the biggest push Eminem has attempted, but it's clearly the most creative.

"In the past, when we've tried to do things in a new way for Eminem, it was just more of OK, cookie-cutter types of ideas," he said. "But in this one we really pushed ourselves, because of the time we're living in, to create a different experience."

Two kinds of tweets
That experience lives on several social networks, but for many fans it has originated on Twitter. Some of the tweets are behind-the-scenes updates leading up to the album's release tomorrow ("They are still editing my video") while others are seemingly non-sequitur paranoia ("There's no place to hide ..."), complete with links to images that suggest Eminem is in a mental hospital and/or rehab facility called Pompsomp Hills.

Other tweets have included a link to the album's cover, a mosaic of pills that form an image of Eminem's face; a screenshot of his upcoming paid iPhone and iPod Touch game set in Pompsomp Hills; a link to a blood-splattered video for his single "3 A.M." that's set in the fictional clinic; and a link to an interactive web experience that's set there as well. That a simple Google search reveals a just-amateur-enough-to-look-real website for Pompsomp Hills makes the narrative details even more discomforting for fans familiar with Eminem's recent real-life troubles with prescription drugs, which put him in rehab and led to his hospitalization for pneumonia in early 2008, as he recently revealed in a Vibe cover story. Omelet, a branding, advertising and entertainment agency based in Los Angeles, helped develop the Pompsomp Hills website, along with other facets of the nontraditional push.

The entirety of "Relapse" was leaked onto the web last week, and in it the rapper reportedly describes his problems in both blunt terms and twisted fantasies, bringing life, marketing and product full circle.

Dennis Dennehy, head of marketing and publicity at Interscope, said Twitter has been the perfect platform to slowly build anticipation since October 2008, when the album was first announced.

"By the nature of the way the information came out, you've had a trail of breadcrumbs to the album," Mr. Dennehy said. "The way we approached this is 'Let's keep that trail coming.'"

Impressive results
While Eminem hasn't relied exclusively on Twitter to get the word out, the effort has produced some impressive results. According to Compete, Eminem.com reached 113,868 unique visitors during April, while the most popular of his tweets -- which linked to Therelapse.com on May 7 -- reached at least 41,704 people within just one week, according to an analysis of data provided to Ad Age by Tweetreach. And data provided by Native Digital, the start-up behind music-buzz tracker We Are Hunted, suggest that Eminem was the most-talked-about artist on Twitter last week, the week before the album's release.

Elliott Wilson, founder and CEO of RapRadar.com, said the micro-blogging tool is perfectly suited to the rapper, because it attracts voyeuristic fans the same way his autobiographical songs do. Mr. Wilson pointed out that one of Eminem's fictional characters, Stan -- a dangerously obsessive fan -- has, in the web lexicon, morphed into lowercase slang for a diehard yet non-violent admirer.

"Twitter is, in a way, the world of 'stans' who now have access to artists," Mr. Wilson said. Although Eminem is using the service in a "real typical promotion way, the fact that he's willing to be part of that, to be in that world, has helped him build up mystery around the record."

Scott Yeti, a marketing consultant to film studios and record labels who runs the hip-hop-marketing blog Woooha, said Eminem's use of storytelling on the web for this campaign goes well beyond the scope of most music marketing.

"The 'Relapse' campaign is very similar to how we would break out a major movie," Mr. Yeti said via e-mail. "The same elements are there, which is rare these days considering the lack of money labels usually have."

"To me, he is taking album marketing to a whole new level," he added. "It truly is an event."

Not the first
Eminem isn't the first artist to build up a reality-melting, cinematic backdrop for an album release. For Nine Inch Nails' album "Year Zero" in 2007, frontman Trent Reznor hired 42 Entertainment to expand the album's dystopian story line into a dizzying array of cryptic websites that could be discovered only by rabid fans. Mr. Reznor recently announced -- through Twitter, of course -- that he's continuing to develop the concept, and it may become a TV show.

'Relapse'

Some in the hip-hop-marketing world downplay the impact of the messaging service, and Eminem and Aftermath/Interscope are not putting all their eggs in the Twitter nest. They're also hitting a variety of media normally used in music campaigns, such as radio appearances, a performance at the MTV Movie Awards, and cover stories in Vibe and XXL. Yet some of those "old media" placements are atypical as well: On Vibe.com, Eminem is a celebrity judge for the "No. 1 Stan" freestyle-rap competition, and XXL is featuring the first part of a Punisher-Eminem comic in conjunction with Marvel Comics; the second half is free online.

Eminem has hit up "Jimmy Kimmel Live" once already, and is planning to make two more appearances within the week and bring 200 laid-off autoworkers to one of the late-night talk show's tapings. He also co-starred in animated form with "Stewie Griffin" from "Family Guy" as the pair hosted Fox's Sunday animation block last night.

Characteristic publicity
Now that the album is out in the wild, some of the rapper's lyrical barbs are generating much of the attention-grabbing publicity he's created in the past. The single "We Made You" and its video skewer a number of women pop stars and make lewd references to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, which prompted an unsurprising response from conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly, and some have taken notice of (and offense to) the track "My Mom," which contains an unflattering pill-popping reference to the late Heath Ledger. But perhaps the biggest blowback from the album has come from TV personality Nick Cannon, who took offense to criticism of his wife, pop icon Mariah Carey, and publicly challenged Eminem to a fight.

That kind of public beef only feeds Eminem's mystique, and, regardless of how well "Relapse" sells, his work on the album and its holistic promotion are signs that Twitter can be just as effective at drawing out mystery and building anticipation as it is at making bands and brands more accessible.

1. Eminem / Marshall MathersIt's 3 a.m.
   83,933 followers · from Detroit · updated about 1 hour ago
2. MrEminem / eminemLiven it
   4,775 followers · from in my head · updated 7:27 PM May 10th
3. TheRealEminem / EminemThe real Slim Shady
   2,872 followers · from Detroit, Michigan · updated about 17 hours ago
4. EminemUK / Eminem
   2,375 followers · updated 6:59 AM Feb 6th
5. slimshadyrec / Eminem
   692 followers · updated 6:23 AM Apr 11th
6. Kuri012 / Eminem's Wife!
   518 followers · from Charleston South Carolina · updated about 8 hours ago
7. mfb_Eminem / mfb eminem
   308 followers
8. jonhmpk83 / EMINEM FANEhttp://www.myspace.com/joeyred83
   241 followers · from CALIFORTNIACATION · updated 1:37 AM May 18th

Interactive Housewives Finale Nets Social Media Success for Bravo

Last week, Bravo hosted a virtual viewing party for The Real Housewives of New York season finale, and they weredesperate for you to tweet them during this interactive live stream that combined Facebook Connect, Sign In with Twitter, and mobile chat.

Now that the drama has played out on-air and the Web, we know that their efforts prevailed. Overall the campaign more than doubled Bravo’s (@bravotv) Twitter follower count, resulted in a huge spike in Twitter mentions during the virtual viewing party, and attracted record numbers toBravo’s website. Plus, as it turns out, one of the housewives, Bethenny (@Bethenny), was a trending topic on Twitter during the season finale.

Peaking at 2,089 tweets mentioning “bravotv” on May 5th, Bravo may not have achieved anywhere near the same mindblowing numbers that CNN pulled in during the Inauguration, but it’s certainly nothing to scoff at for a cable program. Here are a few more notable stats:

1. 2,089 total tweets mentioning “bravotv” on May 5th, and 2,906 total tweets from the 4th - 6th

2. BravoTV increased their follower count 121.18% (from 3,111 to 6,641) during the course of the campaign

3. The percentage of news stories mentioning “bravotv” jumped 15% during the period, with coverage now up 55%

4. BravoTV.com page views for the finale exceeded 1 million and were 159% higher than normal, with 47% more video streams than the previous episode

5. The Real Housewives of New York site accounted for 66% of all BravoTV.com traffic on finale day

6. 40% of viewers participated via Sign in with Twitter

With these numbers, Bravo’s foray into interactive live streaming of traditional TV-only content isn’t likely to be their last. We can only hope that more networks will start experimenting with online broadcasts that tie in audience participation using our favorite social sites. Did you watch the online broadcast? Let us know what you think in the comments.

---

NightTline: Twitter and ABC Launch a Tweetable News Show

Twitter has rapidly become an invaluable tool for news outlets: news anchors are using Twitter constantly to ask questions and gather feedback from their audience, while CNN’s Breaking News account is the #2 most followed user on Twitter. But what ABC and Twitter are about to do tops our list for the boldest use of Twitter within traditional media.

So what’s ABC conjouring up? Well, its popular Nightline news program and anchors are going to host a weekly online news program that uses Twitter for debate and questions. It’s called NightTline. Yes, that’s Nightline with two Ts. The show airs its first episode this Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. EST.

According to ABC, the show will take on Nightline’s Face-Off model, which pits two opposing sides on an issue that an ABCNEWS anchor provides and moderates. It’s a model that causes a lot of heated debate and verbal exchanges, perfect for an easily-distracted online audience. The first question on NightTline? “Is torture ever acceptable?”

Twitter will be integral to the entire show. There will be a Twitter widget that allows viewers to chime in on the discussion or ask questions during the debate. The Nightline anchors will also use Pixel touchscreen technology to display and interact with the debate occurring on Twitter.

The show will air digitally on the Nightline website as well as ABC News Now, ABC’s digital distribution network. We’re very interested to see how much the show will rely on user participation via Twitter for questions or responses to the debaters. This could a be very cool concept or this could fall flat on its face. We’ll just have to watch to find out.