This is the final step in the series 5 Steps to Developing a Sound Facebook Fan Page Strategy. This is finally where the rubber meets the road, and we begin implementing on a Facebook fan page. However, even though this is the last in the series, it shouldn’t be considered the final step. In many ways it’s just the beginning.

Let’s get started.

Step 5: Implement, then Monitor and Respond
Now that the strategy has been set (and agreed upon), it’s time for implementation. This step will first require that you:

Understand the approval process of the page
Assign an “owner” of the page
Frequently monitor how content is performing
Adjust content
As a social media agency, we know that developing an approval process isn’t a one-size fits all approach because each strategy and approval process is slightly different. For some clients, we have a trial period of updates thatare approved by the client, and then the training wheels are taken off and we can update without each post being approved internally. For others, we submit one or two weeks worth of content at a time, and this content is approved by both a client and legal department.

Generally, we prefer the first option. This isn’t because we don’t like going through approvals but because healthy pages in terms of interactions and community generally operate this way. This allows for faster responses, flexibility, and content that is overall more timely and adjusted to fit the needs of the community. Make these considerations for your organization, and do what is best. You will have to find a custom solution that balances your corporate culture with your goals for your page.

Next, you’ll need to designate the “owner” of the page. The reason this is singular is because you need the oversight of a person who is familiar with the page and willing to enforce the strategy. This person can have multiple collaborators providing them with content, but they will need to tweak the content so that it fits the voice of page, and reject content when it doesn’t meet the strategy. This person is the most important person to the health and the life of the page and, therefore, shouldn’t always be the intern you just hired (sorry interns).

After you’ve designated a person to be the owner of the page, you will need to consider what will be monitored on a weekly and monthly basis. At this point, you should have already outlined your objectives and now just need to determine what key performance indicators you’ll track on a regular basis to see how you are driving these objectives. By utilizing Facebook Insights, you will be able to collect simple stats like total fans per day, fan page views, number of unsubscribes to the page, number of interactions on the page, etc. However, to glean actual “insights” from these, you will need to analyze this data and take it one step further (ex. engagement rate over time, net new fans, etc).

In addition, your page owner should also be familiarized with the Facebook feedback scores on a per post level, to see immediately how content is performing. Now that Facebook Insights has improved coming out of F8, you are now able to log in and see data per post. (Don’t worry, we will be covering these improvements to Facebook Insights in greater detail in posts to come…).

After one month you should already have sufficient data that can help direct and guide the types of content that resonate better within your fan base. You should also have a better understanding of what your updating frequency should look like, what times of day or days of the week are more successful, and if fans are unsubscribing because of too much content posted on the page. It will also reveal if you need to re-work your current value proposition, tab structures, or promotions so the entire page closely aligns with what your fans want.

This week we are on step 4 of the series How To Develop a Sound Facebook Fan Page Strategy, developing promotions. Even though every fan page may not need a promotion or series of promotions to be successful, I believe that most can benefit from conducting them. Promotions are an opportunity to jumpstart fan engagement, give value back to fans, and grow the exposure of your page to the personal networks of your current fans.

(Also please note that for the sake of consistency in this series, I’ve chosen to refer to Facebook brand pages still as “fan pages” and “Likers” as “fans”. You can expect us to blog about the implications of Facebook’s F8 developments on Facebook fan pages.)

Step 4: Develop Promotions
As you brainstorm promotions, ensure you are following Facebook terms and conditions. There is nothing worse than developing a promotion, only to realize that it’s illegal to run on Facebook. Read the full terms and conditions, and I’ll summarize the main points you need to know here:

You can promote a promotion within Facebook, but to administer it you must have it approved by Facebook
To have a promotion approved by Facebook, you must have a representative
To get a representative, you must spend 10k/month on Facebook
Promotions have to ask for information for follow-up, you cannot utilize Facebook functionality to message winners or entrants
Even though this seems as if Facebook is trying to deter promotions, there are loopholes. For one, you can create a landing page and drive fans there. Or you could utilize applications like Wildfire who have already built the functionality to promote the contest within a tab, and then administer the contest on their site – with the end user really not being able to tell much of a difference. Deciding what option you will go with is really a budget and timing consideration rather than preference. If you have the time, budget, and patience to get a Facebook representative that will make your dreams come true, I think the end user will benefit from a seamless promotion. However, if you are like most of our clients – you are probably missing one of those three essential ingredients and will need to find a work-around.

Now, once you have a general idea of what you can and cannot do, you can start considering promotion ideas. Because the success of a promotion is dependent on its design and strategy, I’ve included some questions you may want to consider during this step:

1. What is the objective of this promotion?

Gain fans
Gain email opt-ins
Generate awareness of product
Education
Generate user generated content
Inspire advocacy/sharing
2. How will you promote?

Do you have budget to purchase targeted engagement ads?
Is it designed to encourage your fans to become advocates? How?
What assets do you have to cross promote?
3. Where will the promotion be administered?

Will you use an existing application or develop a custom application?
5. How long will this promotion last?

Will this promotion be reoccurring?
6. Will you provide an incentive?

7. Why will fans care?

Perhaps two of the most important things to consider in developing a promotion are how you will target non-fans and encourage them to become fans, and how you will encourage your fans to become advocates for you.

The latter question you need to take time considering because it will dictate how the promotion is implemented and designed. For instance, you may consider a promotion that encourages your current fans to participate and then rally their networks to vote for them. This in turn may help you accomplish your objective of driving new fans and page views. However, if you choose a sweepstakes instead, you may find that you will need to set aside a larger promotion budget simply because fans have no reason to reach out or rally their networks.

To conclude, I wanted to share a company I think is doing a very good job at developing consistent, on-target promotions: Papa John’s. We all remember the free pizza that they gave away to their Facebook fans. Now they are taking their 1.1 million fans and moving them further along the engagement ladder by giving them opportunities to engage and share content with their personal networks.

Below I’ve included screenshots for their latest contest, “Papa John’s Specialty Pizza Challenge”. This challenge is simple: create a specialty pizza, get votes from your friends and family, and if your pizza is chosen by Papa John’s to be the next Specialty Pizza offered, you will receive a portion of the sales and a year’s supply of pizza. Why do I like this so much? It fits their brand. Even though I think I know what they offer, by participating in this promotion I’m offered the ability to explore all of the possibilities and begin thinking of them as more than a piece of pepporoni pizza. Now I know that they have alfredo sauce, and I can add just about any topping I want. I also can discover new mouth watering combinations as I eye my competition.

Stay tuned next week when we will talk about implementing, monitoring, and responding.

A woman in China wanted to buy a car. As is true in almost any marketplace, you get a better deal if you can buy in volume. So she listed her intention on a large Chinese social network and asked if anyone in the area wanted to go into a local dealership and buy the same car. Maybe, she reasoned, if we buy two, we’ll get a better price.

Two weeks later, 55 people walked into that dealership and bought 55 cars.

That, I think, is the real potential for group purchasing. And it has potential to radically transform commerce in the United States.

More than Groupon, Living Social or Twongo

Today’s hot group purchasing websites are Groupon, Living Social and Twongo. They are raising good venture capital and doing the very difficult work of localizing specials. They’ve got a lot to do, and they’re executing quickly, so I’m not diminishing their work. In fact, one of my colleagues here at Ignite Social Media will be writing a post about them shortly.

But when you break it right down, they’re just local Woot. A deal a day. Take it or leave it. Good business model for them, sure, and I love Woot, too. But what about the vast array of other things I need to buy that don’t happen to be one of these daily specials?

I’m a big fan of the potential of social commerce, as I discussed in my post on Mashable earlier this month which outlined the battle between Facebook and Google to be our default social profile. Group purchasing as part of social commerce has significant potential for someone to make a lot of money by making our lives easier.

The eBay of Group Purchasing
What we really need is a new “eBay” of group purchasing– a facilitator of true social commerce. A site that allows me to gather with people in my local community and band together to make major purchases, like cars, computers, couches (and presumably other things that don’t start with a c). Let’s call this company GroupCo at this point. Here’s how it might develop:

Phase I, Group Facilitation: In the early days, GroupCo would simply put us together around a particular item and a particular location. “I want to buy a new Ford Explorer this month in Raleigh, NC. Anyone else want to go with me?” This increases negotiation power, but it’s still up to the individuals to meet up at the dealership and negotiate, then handle their discounted purchases individually. Powerful in its own right, but there’s so much more it can be.

Phase II, Group Negotiation: While walking into a dealership with a dozen people ready to buy will no doubt increase your bargaining power, why not put those dealerships to work prior to showing up? If there are six Ford dealerships in the Raleigh area, why not have them compete with their best offers prior to sending the buyers their way? Now the transaction speed is increased, and everyone can be sure they have a good deal prior to making the buy.

Phase III, Procurement and Purchasing: With the success of Phases I and II, GroupCo now has significant power to work deals. Assuming this model works best for large purchases (who wants to go to the hassle for a loaf of bread?), why not buy directly through that company? Now the dealership is making one large sale to the company, and the company is collecting the payments from the sellers and providing the goods. For smaller purchases, credit cards would be charged by the new company, but as firms like GMAC have taught us, there are huge amounts of money to be made through financing programs. Get me the best deal and a great rate on that purchase, and we’re good.

Phase IV: Direct Distribution: Manufacturers offer their wholesale prices to companies that buy large quantities. Once our new company has built up scale, why go to the dealership, or the furniture store or the electronics store at all? Why not aggregate the purchases, and buy them directly from the manufacturer? This would offer the lowest possible prices, and create a retailer with incredible influence on the market. They could rival Walmart in terms of influence on the market relative to prices. It would be highly disruptive to certain channels selling high end goods, but the benefits to consumers are potentially enormous.

Who Can Do This?
Certainly the leaders in group purchasing right now are the firms I mentioned earlier: Groupon, Living Social and Twongo. At least two are raising significant amounts of venture capital, while the third is growing quickly. That may leave them in the best position early on to achieve this.

These businesses may become distracted by buidling sales forces in each market as they drum up deals of the day from local restaurants. They may build a good business but out on the potential to build a great business. In that case, I’d look for a startup out of nowhere, a Craig’s List, an eBay type firm, to take this concept, and build it out. After all, it doesn’t take much to build a system to handle Phase I. It doesn’t get really tricky until Phase III.

So if you’re the one who builds this, and if this post was any sort of inspiration, a seat on the board of directors would be pretty awesome. Oh, and I’d like to get a really good price on my next Ford Explorer. Think you can hook up me and 54 of my closest friends?

Last week I talked about how important a content strategy is for your fan page. This week I’m going to take that one step further by taking a look at your current tab structure, and how to best optimize and organize the tabs that exist on your Facebook fan page. In this stage of your Facebook strategy development you should already have your content strategy and value proposition together, and these two should also drive the rationale for what tabs are created and how fans are going to interact with them.

Even though the Wall and Info tabs are mandatory, there are 4 visible tabs to utilize and, these should be utilized to provide additional value and areas of engagement. Let’s take a look at how to make sure that your Facebook fan page tabs don’t end up being glorified microsites:

Step 2: Develop the Tab Structure
In order to develop Facebook tabs that are on strategy, you should start by outlining the types of content that you’d like fans to interact with and how these may work with the major goals you’d like to achieve within a tab. These groupings will begin to bubble up the potential tabs you may wish to create. Within this step you should consider the following questions:

What are your overall objectives for your Facebook presence?
What is your primary objective for each tab?
How will you measure success?
How often will you be able to refresh these tabs?
How can you balance the value proposition of the page with your objectives?
What tab will you send non-fans to?
What utility could these tabs provide fans?

The fan page for Threadless is an excellent example of a brand that has balanced its objectives to sell product with its understanding that engagement is just as crucial. Knowing that their customers always want to see and provide feedback around the latest t-shirt designs, they have built a fun and engaging Facebook tab that showcases the new shirts and allows fans to purchase and comment on shirts from within a tab on their fan page.

As you can see from the screenshot above, this tab not only encourages non-fans to become fans, but it provides a reason for current fans to come back and regularly engage with a consistent tab on the Facebook page. Allowing fans to also comment on the shirts helps fans feel engaged with the products without feeling like the tab is only concerned with selling.

Also, this is the best time to start thinking of where you want to send new audiences to your page and how you will convert those audiences once they land there. You can see RedBull sends its non fans to a special landing tab with a large “Become a Fan” call to action (which is now slightly awkward due to the Facebook “Like” transition). This said, even though the call to action is strong, the exclusive content for fans is pushed down at the very bottom of the tab. As a non-fan I was left considering whether or not downloads were worth joining the page.

Another example of a company utilizing a fan landing tab to convert fans is Walgreens. By “Liking” or “Becoming a Fan,” fans will receive access to a recent offer, and if one doesn’t exist, fans are prompted to share an offer on the wall.

These are just a few examples of how brands are utilizing the real estate on their tabs to provide additional value to fans, convert visitors to join the page, and accomplish business objectives. Do you know of other brands that are optimizing their tabs well? Those that are optimizing them poorly? Please share in the comments below, I’d love to check them out.

Ignite Social Media ranked #1 agency social media blog
Posted: April 20th, 2010, 6:59am MDT by Jim Tobin
Woke up to a nice post today on the Cision Blog called “Revisiting the Top 100 Social Media & Internet Marketing Bloggers.” There have been lots of “Top 10,” “Top 50″ or “Top 100″ lists before, but most have been based on either a simple metric or a particular blogger’s preferences. But this list uses data to see which sites users prefer the most, from number of visitors to how long they stay once they get there. According to that new data, here are the top 10 (of 100) social media and internet marketing blogs:

1. Mashable
2. Ignite Social Media <– that’s us!
3. Problogger
4. ReadWriteWeb
5. MediaShift
6. Danny Brown
7. aimClear Blog
8. Seth Godin’s Blog
9. Social Media Today
10. Social Business
Check out the full list of 100 here. What was particularly gratifying about this list is that Cision used real data (from their tool and Compete) to rank these sites based on audience behaviors, including:

Average Unique Visitors per Month (available in CisionPoint),
Average Page Views per Month per Unique Visitor,
Average Time (seconds) per Month per Unique Visitor, and
Average Visits per Month per Unique Visitor
So really, thank you for coming to our site, staying around a while and coming back periodically. Pretty much all of my favorite blogs are on the list, so to be included at all is an honor. To be ranked second only to Mashable and to be ranked first among all agencies is humbling. Excuse me while I go around the office to make sure we’ve got more content coming asap!

Last weekend I was browsing my Facebook account, when text on the right side of the screen caught my eye: “Frightened Rabbit coming to Cat’s Cradle.” Frightened Rabbit? Seriously? I freaking LOVE that band! I clicked, I was transferred to the vendor’s info page, and minutes later I printed out my ticket.

I saw, I clicked, I bought. A Facebook ad fairy tale. If only all impressions could end in such sweet success.

In reality, as with most online ads, millions of Facebook ad impressions end their digital lives as nothing more than a sight briefly seen on a sidebar. So what can you do to ensure that at least a decent number of your ads lead Facebook wanderers to the promised land?

1) Think “eye candy.”
Yes, that does sound strange, and NO, I’m not suggesting you use irrelevant photos of attractive people to catch clicks. But at the same time, not many folks are going to click on a pic of a pickle.

Because pickles are boring.

Choose art that has to do with your product or service, but also choose art that catches the eye. Figuring out what pictures work the best often have to do with trial and error. Sometimes even switching up a background color can make a significant difference in clicks.

2) Titles are your friend.
There’s some debate over whether the picture or the title of a Facebook ad is the most valuable asset for pulling in clicks, and, personally, I think it can be either, depending on the ad. If your ad is going directly to a Facebook page, you don’t have much of a choice for the title – it defaults to page’s name. But when you’re going to an outside site, you have the freedom to create your own 25-character title. Twenty-five characters really isn’t much (we’re talking 18% of a tweet!), so this is another opportunity to get creative and see what works.

My most successful ad titles in the past have always included a call to action. “Win a Laptop!” “Download the Beta!” But, ultimately, I think your strategy really depends on the audience you’re trying to reach. I clicked on the “Frightened Rabbit” ad because it told me they were coming to town – that’s all I needed to see.

3) Mix and Match.
If I were to sum up this blog post in one sentence, it would be this one: Developing and running Facebook ads is a big experiment. And in order to get enough data, you need to begin with enough to study. I usually begin by running every set of copy I have with every piece of art I have, and seeing which ones pan out to be the most successful. You may be surprised. Sometimes the pictures I find the least appealing, or the words I find the least interesting end up getting the most clicks. That’s why it’s important to really try things out instead of assuming that your own personal preferences know best.

4) Keyword strategy = psychology.
When you’re developing keywords lists for your ads, think about your target audience. If you’re targeting 24-year-old guys, try “Family Guy” or “John Stewart.” If you’re targeting Megan Hannay, try “Coffee” or “France.” Some of your keywords may have absolutely NOTHING to do with your product, but that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Why bother to target people who already list your product as one of their “interests?”

5) Plan ahead, and “copy” later.
This is a cool trick that I didn’t figure out until my third or fourth Facebook ad campaign. Maybe I’m just slow, but I’ll share it with you just in case.

When you first create a Facebook ad, you usually have to wait a few hours (sometimes up to a day) before the ad is “approved” to go up. In other words, don’t expect that your ad will go up within seconds of its creation. BUT whenever you go to create a new ad, you have the option of “copying” any previously approved ad instead of starting from scratch. This function can be super helpful if you’re creating a batch of ads, all for the same campaign, with the same start and end dates, and with the same (or similar) keywords.

I recommend starting about 48 hours out from when you want your ads to go up. Create that first ad, fill out all the info on keywords and target audience and campaign name, etc., wait for it to be approved, and suddenly, you’ve got a decent starting point for all of your other ads. All you have to do is “copy” the original ad, switch up the photo, or the copy, or maybe some keywords, and you’re good to go! This is a huge huge time saver when you’re developing a slew of ads for a campaign.

6) Start out STRONG.
Let’s say you have $3000 for three weeks of ads. You could set your daily budget to $142.86 per day, and leave it at that for twenty-one days. But how much fun is that? We want results now! And I’m not just talking about more traffic to your page. The CTR of the first few hours of an ad’s run dictates the number of impressions Facebook is going to give it for the rest of its life. So give your ads a good chance! I usually start my ads with at least a few hundred dollars as their daily budget. This way, you get the kind of information you need early on (how the ads work, what ads need to be paused or redone).

Plus, part of the point of engagement ads (or of any social media engagement, really) is to get people talking about your product or service or contest, with the hope that they’ll spread the news to their social networks. Ideally, putting out more budget during the first few days or weeks of your ad will lead to faster impressions and social spread on the part of your product throughout the campaign.

7) Switch it up.
Even eye candy can go stale. It’s been a few days or weeks since launch? Try something new. Flip around your titles. swap some sentences (remaining within the confines grammar and continuity rules, of course). Don’t worry, you won’t hurt an ad’s feelings by giving it a new face – it WANTS to be successful. Pause ads, edit them, turn them upside down. Keep going when it works, and trash it when it doesn’t.

8) Don’t always believe the “suggested bid.”

Okay, so let’s say I started all of my ads with a $1.25 per click bid because Facebook suggested something between $1.14 and $1.36. Now, six days later, Facebook “suggests” somewhere between $1.50 and $1.77. Why? WHY? Did I just miss the quickest bout of inflation in the history of the United States? No, I haven’t. And you won’t have either, when your bid suddenly jumps. Because it will. And, to be honest, I’m not quite sure why. I’m sure it has something to do with the Facebook ad algorithm that only a handful of nerds in Palo Alto can comprehend. But what I do know is that sometimes raising an ad’s bid by even as much as $.50 has absolutely no effect on the number of impressions or the click-through rate.

If you do want to raise your bid (which IS sometimes very necessary), try it first on a few of your ads. See how these ads compare after a day or two, and go from there.

9) Don’t expect a miracle.
Yes, Facebook ads will bring more fans, er, “like-ers(?)” to your page or site. But in order to retain those fans and/or a low bounce rate, you need to make sure that people will be engaged once they get there .If you’re running a campaign or contest, you’ve already got a pretty good call to action. But if you’re just looking for new fans for your existing Facebook page, you want to make sure to have a reason for them to be there. Consider offering discounts for new fans. Answer questions that they post on the wall. If no one posts questions, ask a question! Everybody loves answering questions. Don’t you agree?

What’s Next?
For those of you who spent yesterday under a rock, Facebook announced a bunch of developments that will be rolling out on the site. Some of these changes may begin to influence ad targeting. Now users will be able to connect to Facebook via outside sites and “like” everything from their favorite bands, to their favorite Tuesday-night TV show and their favorite lipstick brand. As you can imagine, this information will likely re-engineer Facebook ads as we know them. I’m super-excited to see what new options this signifies for the future of Facebook ad creation!

Levi’s is one of the first major brands to implement Facebook’s social plugins into their online shop, turning it into a “social shopping experience.”

Upon entering levi.com, shoppers can now choose to shop socially by clicking on the “like-minded shopping starts here” sign. In there, customers can share Levi’s products with their friends, “like” them, or find “Top-Liked” products across their networks. To do that, they must connect with Facebook which is a simple, one-click process.

Jodi Bricker, Vice President of Digital for Levi’s® Americas said, “We’re creating a new social shopping experience that will change the way people shop online and, frankly, make buying jeans more fun. We’re excited to pioneer this new technology and help our loyal fans connect with our brand and share their favorite Levi’s® products with friends.”

Of course, since the feature is new, you probably won’t see any “likes” from your friends, but in time you’ll be able to shop based on the recommendations of your Facebook buddies, which – I’ve got to admit – really does make the experience more enjoyable.

By Lisa Braziel

Last week I discussed the first step in developing a sound Facebook fan page strategy, developing a firm value proposition.  This week, I want to cover the next step: developing the content strategy.

In a nutshell, the content strategy is the guide for the ongoing content posted to the page.  It doesn’t need to be a full editorial calendar, nor should it turn into one.  Instead, this strategy is simply the overall guidance for the types of content your page will update on an ongoing basis to help accomplish the value proposition.  Just like brand guidelines, it will save your Facebook fan page from appearing like it has ADHD.

Step 2: Develop the Content Strategy

This step will require your brand to balance content that will help progress your objectives and content that will help drive the value proposition of the page.  To stay true to the value proposition of the page, you must develop content guidelines for what buckets of content you will post, and hold true to these guidelines for at least a month before reevaluating.  You will find that these content buckets will give you the excuse not to update everything that is suggested for the page.

The following are just some examples of what  “content buckets” may look like.  As you can imagine, these are very specific to the value proposition, company, and objectives for the page.

• “Fan Engagement” Specific Posts: Polls,open-ended questions that are designed to specifically garner feedback and engagement from your fans
• Discount/Deal Posts: Discounts or deals that are specific to fans, or released first to fans
• Influencer Posts: Content developed by bloggers or other credible parties in the space

Like I mentioned, these are very vague examples (after all, I can’t give everything away can I?).  However, I hope they show you that it is better to distill the types of content you will post rather than treating each update to the page as a one-off.

After developing these content buckets, there are other items to consider in developing a comprehensive content strategy:

• Frequency: How often will you post content? What time of day do most interactions occur? Will this frequency annoy fans?
• Content Format: Will your updates primarily include links?  Do you have any photos or videos you can share?
• Content Approvals:  Do updates have to be approved internally before posting?
• Wall Management: How will you respond to customer support questions on the page? Who will moderate and respond to general questions on the page?

As you can tell from these questions, it is important to not only think about the types of content to post to the page, but to think about the overall management and oversight of the page.  For instance, you can have a firm value proposition and a solid content strategy based around timely and informed updates- but if your organization has an arduous legal review process you will surely need to reevaluate and tweak your strategy accordingly.

]]> http://www.marketingpromotionsnetwork.com/blog/2010/04/how-to-develop-a-sound-facebook-fan-page-strategy-step-2/feed/ 0 http://www.marketingpromotionsnetwork.com/blog/2010/04/will-promoted-tweets-work/ http://www.marketingpromotionsnetwork.com/blog/2010/04/will-promoted-tweets-work/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:19:19 +0000 admin http://www.marketingpromotionsnetwork.com/blog/?p=96 By Paul Verna

Well, it finally happened. After months, maybe years, of speculation, Twitter pulled the trigger on its ad monetization concept. We can now refer to it by its actual name: Promoted Tweets.

Everything we know about the plan so far is consistent with November 2009 comments by Twitter COO Dick Costolo and a February 2010 blog posting by All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka. That is, Twitter will show sponsored posts in feeds resulting from selected user-initiated searches. For example, when some users search for Starbucks or Best Buy, they’ll see ads from those companies before they see the string of conversational tweets that meet the search criteria. The Wall Street Journal noted that 2% to 10% of Twitter users will be part of the initial rollout, with more to come later.

At the most basic level, Promoted Tweets emulates the Google model of tying relevant advertising to search results. But that doesn’t mean Twitter will necessarily be able to monetize search to the extent that Google has.

Consider the differences between the platforms.

Google users tend to search for archived information, which makes them amenable to advertising as a tradeoff for thorough search data. On the other hand, Twitter users more often search for timely information and, in general, and are less likely to tolerate having their experience stalled by an ad. That being said, if Twitter is able to integrate Promoted Tweets into search results and user timelines as seamlessly as Digg, for example, it’s possible that users won’t be too bothered.

Then there’s the third-party issue. Many Twitter users access the service via external Web and mobile apps, so measuring the effectiveness of the ads will be more challenging for Twitter than for a closed-loop system. And measurability will be critical to the success of Promoted Tweets because the system is based on a CPM model. Even more importantly, Twitter has said it would discontinue ads that don’t measure up to a pre-established set of criteria. Twitter calls this “resonance,” and the factors that go into it include the number of people who saw the post, the number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and the number of people who clicked on links, according to The New York Times.

So, will Promoted Tweets work? This will depend on how consumers react to having a corporate presence in their Twitter feeds, which in turn will depend on how well Twitter implements this new model. So far, the company is acting cautiously, limiting ads to search results among a small percentage of its users, with a fixed number of brands participating.

It seems smart to float a trial balloon rather than launch a rocket ship. This will allow Twitter to gauge feedback quickly and correct course if necessary—all of which is easier in a limited-scale project.

Consumers have grown accustomed to sponsored search results, so transferring that paradigm from Google/Digg to Twitter is not a huge leap. The real test will come later, when Twitter attempts to run ads in user timelines. Can the company do this while continuing to grow its user base to its stated goal of 1 billion by 2013?

Probably not, but more modest growth fueled in part by this ad platform seems like a reasonable expectation.

Although our services extend beyond the Web, Twitter ranks as one of the most popular sites on the Internet. Over the years, we’ve resisted introducing a traditional Web advertising model because we wanted to optimize for value before profit. The open exchange of information creates opportunities for individuals, organizations, and businesses alike. We recognized value in this exchange and planned to amplify it in a meaningful and relevant manner.

Stubborn insistence on a slow and thoughtful approach to monetization—one which puts users first, amplifies existing value, and generates profit has frustrated some Twitter watchers. Believe me, when your name is Biz and you’re a co-founder of Twitter, it also means putting yourself at the mercy of folks like Stephen Colbert who hit home runs with lines like, “So, I assume that ‘Biz’ in ‘Biz Stone’ does not stand for ‘Business Model’.”

We hope you’ll share in our enthusiasm as today we unveil a simple service we’re calling Promoted Tweets. It’s non-traditional, it’s easy, and it makes a ton of sense for Twitter. Our COO Dick Costolo will be talking about this much anticipated offering in detail today at the AdAge Digital conference. Tomorrow at Chirp, both Dick and our fearless leader Evan Williams will further discuss this program and what it means for the Twitter ecosystem.

This announcement is a long time coming and we’re thrilled to finally be able to share it with you. As this project matures, there will be more to talk about. We will learn a lot as the program grows. In the meantime, if you have questions about Promoted Tweets, please read through this Q&A provided by the small but incredibly hard-working team behind Promoted Tweets. Hopefully, you’ll get a good idea of what we’re working to achieve.

Q: What are you launching? What are Promoted Tweets?
A: We are launching the first phase of our Promoted Tweets platform with a handful of innovative advertising partners that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America — with more to come. Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.

Q. What will users see?
A. You will start to see Tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages. We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you. We’ll attempt to measure whether the Tweets resonate with users and stop showing Promoted Tweets that don’t resonate. Promoted Tweets will be clearly labeled as “promoted” when an advertiser is paying, but in every other respect they will first exist as regular Tweets and will be organically sent to the timelines of those who follow a brand. Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favoriting. Only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page.

Q. You said, “first phase”; what else do you have planned?
A. Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you.

Q: Is this what you said we would love and would be awesome?
A: While we are excited about the platform in general, there are several specific aspects of the launch that we are delighted to highlight. Since all Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single “ad” in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn’t already an organic part of Twitter. This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment.

There is one big difference between a Promoted Tweet and a regular Tweet. Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar—they must resonate with users. That means if users don’t interact with a Promoted Tweet to allow us to know that the Promoted Tweet is resonating with them, such as replying to it, favoriting it, or Retweeting it, the Promoted Tweet will disappear.

Q. Anything else to say?
A. This is a new thing and we expect to iterate to make it better. We’re really excited to get it out to you and look forward to getting your feedback.

Walgreens, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, was one of the first brick-and-mortar retailers to go online back in 1995. Today, prescriptions and photo processing are the top online traffic drivers, followed by vitamins, cosmetics and general merchandise.

Miguel Almeida, vice president of online merchandising and operations for Deerfield, Ill.–based Walgreens.com, oversees all aspects of online sales, merchandising, customer service and fulfillment for front-end products. Mr. Almeida spoke with eMarketer about the online marketplace and how the company drives e-commerce traffic and sales. Here’s a snippet from the full interview available on eMarketer Total Access.

eMarketer: What categories dominate your online business?

Miguel Almeida: Online, we are a health, wellness and beauty destination. Walgreens.com is also a place for consumers to fulfill their everyday needs in other products.

Once people establish a relationship through photo, pharmacy or front-end products like vitamins or cosmetics, they may add consumable items to their basket. Consumables are not a key online destination. We don’t use consumables to bring customers to the online channel.

eMarketer: Online, how do categories complement each other?

Mr. Almeida: There is a relationship between the business units in terms of attracting people. Online pharmacy is very strong and is a big area of Walgreens.com’s business. People need to come back for prescriptions.

The online photo customer has a portfolio of photos that they want to upload on our Website. We also do photo gifts. Then, they start seeing our general merchandise offerings.

eMarketer: How do you make money online with consumables?

Mr. Almeida: Once somebody becomes a Walgreens.com customer, they are refilling prescriptions and buying general merchandise. Having items for shoppers’ everyday needs is part of our value proposition. The profitability comes from the three categories playing off each other.

eMarketer: Do you consider consumables a growth area?

Mr. Almeida:Our online consumables business is growing. We provide a good assortment along with a good value proposition and convenience.

eMarketer: Which consumables categories perform well online?

Mr. Almeida: HBC [health and beauty care] is one of the largest, although there is no big one. Rather, HBC is part of the long tail of the online equation. Dental, deodorant, bath, health needs, shaving and diapers are very popular. Some of the items can’t be found in the store. Certain ethnic hair care items are a perfect example of the long tail.

eMarketer: How much of your consumables business revolves around products that are not carried by that many stores?

Mr. Almeida: Some stores are changing their assortments and trying to rationalize SKUs to make their stores more customer-friendly. There are items online that are no longer being offered in stores. This is how our in-store business ties to the online business. People immediately go to the Website to find these items.

eMarketer: Is the inability to carry so many SKUs in the store a direct result of all the brand extensions created in recent years?

Mr. Almeida: From a supply standpoint, CPG companies are adding a lot of SKU varieties to increase their market share. From a retail standpoint, it gets really complex to carry the whole assortment in stores. An overcrowded store is not that customer-friendly. As a company, we can manage high-velocity items in stores. But the customer who can’t find something in the aisles can find the exact items online.

eMarketer: How many more consumables do you carry on your Website versus in stores?

Mr. Almeida: Roughly 25% more consumables are available online versus in stores. I can’t provide specific numbers. But I will say we have thousands of items online. It’s one of our key focus areas.

eMarketer: How do you inform shoppers that a product they can’t find in stores may be available online?

Mr. Almeida: Our in-store signage helps. It tells people that they can go to Walgreens.com to find what they’re looking for. We have been more aggressive about actively placing these signs in all our stores.

eMarketer: Do consumables customers also turn to your Website for educational information?

Mr. Almeida: When we talk to online and multichannel customers, we find there is a growing group who is proactive about obtaining information before purchasing certain consumables. We saw this group starting to emerge in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Many are eco-conscious. They want to know what’s good for their skin. They use our Website to research products. The richness of online information, reviews and content is far beyond what you can obtain in a physical store.

eMarketer: How do you feel about some of the big manufacturers selling products online? Is this competition?

Mr. Almeida: Manufacturers are testing the waters of the online channel. Many manufacturers don’t have a lot of visibility there. This is a great way for manufacturers to learn directly from a consumer standpoint.

But I still think the value is in offering shoppers a purchasing experience that lets them buy a complete market basket. If I have to go to five sites to get shaving cream, the manufacturer-to-consumer concept won’t work. I see the value of testing the waters. But it can only go so far.

eMarketer: Are you doing anything in the area of mobile ordering?

Mr. Almeida: We have a strong mobile offering in pharmacy and photo. You can refill your prescription from your phone. You can send photos from your iPhone and pick them up in the store. This has been fairly successful. We also have a GPS-based store locator that lets you find a store based on where you’re standing.