Thought your “Moments” were going to be ad free? Think again.
Twitter isn’t wasting any time trying to cash in on its latest product, saying Friday that it’s bringing advertising to its “Moments” feature this weekend. The first “Promoted Moments” campaign, scheduled to go up Sunday, will be for the upcoming Rocky sequel called “Creed.” Other campaigns will begin rolling out starting Monday.
Launched two weeks ago, the much-hyped Moments lets Twitter users get information on major trending events, including breaking news, concerts and sporting events, through curated tweets, videos and images. The San Francisco-based social network is hoping Moments will attract more advertisers and drive its revenue.
Advertisers will be able to weave a series of tweets into a given Moment. Those tweets will be live on Twitter for 24 hours.
Related links
- Twitter’s new Moments spotlights events as they unfold
- Jack gives back: Twitter CEO gives a third of his stock to employees
- Tough challenges ahead for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
“We’re excited to see how fun, informative and entertaining stories from brands come to life within Moments,” Bobby Grasberger, a Twitter brand strategy manager, said in a blog post. “This is the first step in exploring how brands could integrate into Moments.”
The arrival of Promoted Moments is another move by Twitter to reenvision itself, a process that got renewed emphasis in early October when co-founder Jack Dorsey became CEO for the second time.
Since his reappointment, Dorsey has laid off 8 percent of the company’s workforce, including engineers, and has found Twitter a new executive chairman. Dorsey has also overseen the release of Moments, and he tweeted Thursday that he’s giving a third of his Twitter shares, about 1 percent of the company, to employees. Dorsey’s contribution would be worth about $200 million as of today.
Twitter will announce its third-quarter results Tuesday.