Today, Twitter launched its long awaited curated news product, called Moments, and they did it without advertising for it at all. This doesn’t mean they won’t be advertising for it though.
A spokesperson said that the company is talking to brand partners about Promoted Moments and that they’ll be starting testing soon. This will be in “weeks, not months.”
“Moments is entirely focused on helping people find and digest great content and stories, on any topic,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “This experience reflects many of the same fundamental attributes that make Twitter so powerful for marketers today – reaching an audience of people who are in a mindset to discover new information, ideas, and stories. With the immersive media canvas within Moments, we believe there will be many opportunities for brands to integrate content and stories in the future.”
With Promoted Moments, brands will be given the opportunity to tell complete stories in the multimedia format, which will be very immersive, especially on mobile devices. They will be tested in a range of different topics, such as real-time events, seasonally-relevant stories, as well as “authentic narratives around a brand’s values.” The new Promoted Moments are going to be given prominent placement within the guide of the day’s top Moments and run for a full day (24 hours), which is similar to how the Promoted Trend is placed within the Trending Topics lists.
The Twitter spokesperson said,
“We’re just beginning to test this with brands – so we expect to learn a lot from these test and understand how consumers react. This mean things may change. There are so many possibilities for brands here – but we’re starting slowly to ensure we learn from what users like best in this environment.”