Businesses and ad networks are increasingly finding new ways to integrate social media and advertising. This is evident with AdKnowledge's recent acquisition of SocialMedia.com's ad network, and it is also evident with TweetMeme's new AdTweets. AdTweets is a product, which TweetMeme says is designed to reward advertisers for using engaging advertisements.

"The Adtweets are a way of putting pressure on advertisers to improve the standard of adverts, and give the audience a chance to decide, and essentially vote, on what they like," says TweetMeme's Nick Halstead. "Produce a good advert that your audience likes, and you can easily tap into the viral nature of Twitter and the ‘retweet effect’, which will then dramatically increase your reach."

The TweetMeme retweet button can be integrated into any standard IAB ad size, as the company points out. Still, advertisers can choose between a compact button or the standard button. AdTweets can also utilize TweetMeme's analytics to monitor the success of a campaign.

TweetMeme has also re-launched "Featured Tweets," which help promote specific stories and encourage the sharing of content to other Twitter users.

"The potential value of the featured tweets was apparent in the first version, but there were some essential elements missing," says Halstead. "After taking on board invaluable feedback from both users and customers, the service was suspended. It was back to the drawing board, and what has emerged is a new Featured Tweet system that sponsors can use to bring relevant news and stories quickly to the attention of the TweetMeme Community, who then have the opportunity to retweet the story to their Twitter Followers and so on."

According to TweetMeme, the purpose of Featured Tweets is to give stories that have a good chance of going viral, a "helping hand." They are supposedly better targeted now, include analytics, and there are a reduced number of sponsored stories per page.


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