The company, one of 20 beta testers for a turnkey Promoted Tweets program from Twitter, today published a blog entry detailing its experience. Kathleen Colan, director of marketing and content for Mongoose Metrics, says that bidding for most terms starts at 10 cents per engagement, which is defined as a retweet, a favorite, a reply or a click. But not all terms start at that rate. Colan says "SEO" started at $1 per engagement. "That was the first kind of weird thing we saw," she says. "Bidding was supposed to be 10 cents and all of the sudden it was $1."
Twitter rolled out Promoted Tweets in April — initially on Twitter.com, but later on HootSuite as well. On November 1, the tweets began appearing in user timelines.
In addition to broadening syndication, Twitter keeps refining the program to make it more of a turnkey solution. Earlier this month, Twitter began offering a form on its website to let businesses express their interest in Promoted Tweets, Trends or Products. Using that form, businesses can purchase terms and set a maximum total spend. Though businesses can fill out the forms now, they can't actually buy anything, but Colan says Twitter plans to roll out the program publicly in late January or early February. Reps from Twitter could not be reached for comment.