We discussed it until we exhausted every clever headline copywriters would send us for a nominal fee — social media advertising is here to stay. Despite our opinions on its alleged effectiveness, clients are going to take advantage of sponsored tweets and boosted posts because it’s the thing to do.
And so, Twitter has a new thing to do — the “Buy Now” button is coming to a timeline near you, as seen in this picture from TechSpot.com. Twitter and e-Commerce: what a fabulous marriage this should be.
Twitter finally realized that “sponsored tweets” are much like commercials on a DVR — they can be easily ignored with one flick of the finger or scroll of the mouse. There wasn’t a strong call-to-action there, so the microblog trendsetter decided to change those two words to something ironic — buy now.
Why is that ironic? Anchor text (i.e., the terms many amateur or spammer website developers write that say “Click Here”) has received a spanking from Google. But if the primary-colored shoe fits…
And so, these disruptive suggestions will only work on the mobile version of Twitter. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Twitter has discussed monetary buttons (per a Mashable report):
A Wall Street Journal report from April claimed that multiple ad types were on the way for Twitter, including shoppable Twitter ads. The “Buy now” button appears to be similar to the “Download” button that shows up in app-install ads. That same WSJ report said Twitter is also testing a “click-to-call” button that would connect users with the company that published the tweet.
While rumors have shown that Twitter is trying to create its own payment system for merchants everywhere, this is advertising as we know it today. Now how effective could it possibly be?