Twitter uses Hootsuite for advertising play

Making good on its intention to turn a buck from Twitter, the micro-blogging company on Monday began placing 'timeline' Promoted Tweets via its first syndicated ad partner, HootSuite.

Unlike search-based Promoted Tweets, which appear when a user enters a search term, timeline Promoted Tweets appear when Twitter's algorithm determine it appropriate. 

"We use several signals to determine a Promoted Tweet's relevance to a user, including the public list of whom they follow," Twitter spokesperson Matt Groves explained on the company's blog.  

Groves said Twitter wouldn't expand the program until it bedded down its ad-delivery mechanism. 

When it eventually does, Twitter will have over 160 million users across six languages. 

Only some Twitter users that log-in to their accounts via HootSuite would see the new paid-for Tweets, which according to HootSuite would be clearly marked. 

HootSuite became Twitter's first "syndicated" advertising partner earlier this month. 

Authenticity of Tweets would be crucial to the success of the new product. 

"We're carefully looking at how Twitter users react to and engage with Promoted Tweets in the timeline," said Groves. 

"We want to display Promoted Tweets in a way that's both useful and authentic to the Twitter experience." 

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, who stepped aside from his former role as CEO earlier this month, said he wanted the company to realise its potential as a profitable company. 

Twitter has also recently invested in new data centre capacity to ensure reliability of the service. Its new US data centre reportedly came online last week.