Consumers may trample over each other to get cheaper TVs and laptops this season, but Twitter’s advertising partners may have found the best Black Friday deal of all—the ability to tweet you promotions.
Just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the microblogging network announced “Twitter Offers” on Tuesday.
See also: Search All The Tweets! Twitter Now Indexed All The Way Back To 2006
The service lets retailers tweet deals directly to customers, and users can easily grab one of these promotions within the tweet itself.
Tweets, As Commerce
When users see deals they want, they tap the “add offer to card” button to tie the offer to their credit card number. When they go to the store and purchase with the item (with that card), the cash-back savings will show up on their next credit card statement.
Twitter makes its money on this specialized version of promoted tweets by charging the advertisers, a select group of whom will participate in the launch phase. The initial stage essentially amounts to a test, allowing Twitter and its advertisers to see how effective and popular the approach is among the network’s 284 million or so users. If the response rate proves that people like having deals tweeted at them, it could become a valuable profit center to boost the company’s already impressive earnings.
Twitter posted $320 million in advertising revenue in the last quarter, ending in September 2014, which was up 109 percent from the same period last year.
The frenzy of post-Thanksgiving shopping may provide the best barometer of the service’s success. According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, roughly 6 in 10 people (about 140 million) plan to shop over the holiday weekend.
In conjunction with the launch, the company opened a fresh new Twitter account, @TwitterCommerce. Its first tweet introduced the service; its second retweeted a deal from AMC Theatres offering free popcorn when you buy a $30 AMC gift card.
Holiday gift idea time! Buy an AMC gift card and get a #free small popcorn coupon for every $30 you spend! http://t.co/RWMQ21BBTT
— AMC Theatres (@AMCTheatres) November 20, 2014
Lead photo by Adriana Lee for ReadWrite
