Twitter clearly cannot wait to make money off Moments, as the microblogging network has announced a new way to monetize its latest product.
Launched just two weeks ago to much fanfare, Twitter Moments is a live events tracker that allows users to follow the most important updates about breaking news, sports, concerts and other live events. The product is seen as Twitter's response to growing pressure from Facebook and Snapchat, which both become news platforms in their own right, while investors come in from all sides to push Twitter to grow its user base.
Although Moments' viability has not been fully tested, it appears Twitter is eager to give in to the pressure from all sides. Bobby Grasberger, manager of brand strategy at Twitter, has announced in a blog post that Twitter will be leasing Moments channels to brands and businesses where they can promote their live events for 24 hours.
"We're seeing how powerful this experience can be for diving into meaningful narratives - and since Twitter's inception, brands have told some of the very best stories on the platform," Grasberger says.
He hints that Twitter will be looking into more ways businesses can use Moments as a platform, saying that Promoted Moments are just "the first step in exploring how brands could integrate into Moments."
Promoted Moments will look just like regular Moments, such as the Back to the Future channel curated by Twitter's editorial team, with the help of Twitter's algorithm, to celebrate Oct. 21, 2015, the day Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrived in the future (which is now in the past), and the channel for Rihanna's big reveal of her album art. The major difference, however, is that Promoted Moments will feature tweets, photos and videos curated by the brand, and they will have the unmistakable badge to indicate that they are ads.
"Promoted Moments, like all of our ad products, will look and feel just like all other Moments - except they'll be authored by a brand and be featured in the Moments guide for 24 hours, with a Promoted badge."
MGM, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema will be the first advertisers to launch their own Promoted Moments channel, which will go live on Sunday night to promote the "Rocky" spinoff film "Creed."
First unofficially unveiled as Project Lightning, Twitter Moments is seen as a crucial addition to Twitter, as newly appointed CEO Jack Dorsey puts out all the stops to reinvent the platform and please Wall Street. His efforts also include naming former Google exec Omid Kordestani as chairman and laying off about 8 percent of the company's workers.
