Twitter recently announced that it’s not letting users push their own advertisements and sponsored tweets through Twitter. While this is a rather specific act on Twitter’s part, it’s clear how any marketer may seem concerned. Could advertising be at the top of a slippery slope? If you’re worried … don’t. If anything, the Twitter prohibition on tweeted ads (except its own, of course), will help B2B marketers and others who use insights, expertise and experience as the meat in their communications with the market.

Twitter’s Big Change
For Twitter, marketing and advertising have evolved since its inception. What began with self-promotion turned into business promotion, ongoing marketing and then eh ale of space in your own tweet stream (i.e., advertising). For much of its existence, of course, Twitter had virtually no revenue and didn’t seem to have any prospects (or even interest) in changing that.

In October, everything changed. Twitter announced data licensing deals with Microsoft and Google, resulting in multi-year agreements worth a total of $25 million. This business line has since grown, with six other licensing clients announced by the end of the first quarter of 2010. And in April, Twitter launched its advertising model, consisting of sponsored tweets appearing at the tops of search pages. This development put the company in direct competition with some of its users, especially those from media outlets.

Companies such as the NY Times began including Twitter in their advertising packages last year, adding another revenue stream to traditional channels. They thus were using Twitter to pick up more revenue – doubtless a smart move. Of course, this is money Twitter could be making … and now probably feels that it should be making.

So, Twitter has changed its terms of service, it announced on the company blog, to prohibit the use of the platform for advertising, except through its own program. I suspect that a future revenue stream for the company could be to allow companies resell Twitter advertising space, essentially deputizing its users to close ad deals.

Marketing Queasiness
Marketing and advertising may not be the same thing, but they are members of the same family. So, it doesn’t take intellectual acrobatics to see how this could be a first step toward booting all marketing activity from the social media platform.

Social media purists and some individual users have lamented that marketers have become such a strong presence on Twitter. What began as a way for people to connect, the thinking goes, has become “tainted” by those of us who see the potential of this tool for growing businesses.

If Twitter were killing users’ in-stream ads for this reason, I’d agree that there would be cause for alarm. Fortunately, this is not the case.

It looks as though Twitter’s motivation was strictly financial, though the company claims on its blog that it was driven to the decision by an interest in preserving a clean end-user experience. Even if we take the latter perspective at face value, there’s a significant difference between “you might be interested in reading my white paper” and “SPONSORED TWEET: click here to learn how you can save on car insurance!” Additionally, the ease with which sponsored tweets can be policed does not translate to other marketing activity on Twitter.

So, we should be safe to keep marketing on Twitter.

How This Affects You
Does it seem like all this social media stuff is irrelevant to you, marketing in the IT channel? Think again! The implications may be indirect, but they are actually quite real … and beneficial. Twitter’s move to “clean up” the end-user experience and take complete ownership of advertising on its own platform will clear away the overtly promotional (of the paid variety) and make it easier for our marketing tweets to be noticed.

In a world where media consumers ignore banner ads and fast forward through commercials, tolerance for advertising has fallen. The containment of sponsored tweets makes the environment more attractive to all users, therefore, which should support the growth of the platform –to include the people that you will want to reach. Further, an environment that isn’t ad-ridden should lead to more interaction, making it easier for you to connect with your target market.

The social media marketing world just got brighter for the IT channel!