Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Twitizens Tweet to Turn a Profit

Posted by Katie Noonan

Amanda blogged earlier this week about sponsored conversations in the blogosphere, or, the practice of reputable bloggers being paid to promote a product or company on their blog.

Today on The Wall Street Journal blog Digits, Elizabeth Holmes raised the issue of sponsored Twitter tweets, basically, the same practice- just now it's taking place in the Twitosphere, too.

Melanie Notkin, the entrepreneur of SavvyAuntie.com, who has a following of 7,000 on Twitter, recently partnered with Disney to promote the anniversary release of Pinocchio. Notkin said she was in full control of what she tweeted and how many times she tweeted to promote the movie re-release.

I strongly second what Sean Corcoran of Forrester Research and others say about the need for sponsored conversations to be radically transparent. Part of the appeal of Twitter for me and many other average users, is that it enables us to have genuine conversations with thought leaders. Personally, I think some of the appeal of Twitter is lost when that paid, promotional tweet slips in.

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