• Seattle PI, Tuesday, November 2, 2010 1:34 PM

Expanding its Promoted Tweets ad program, Twitter this week began dropping ads into the timelines of some members -- specifically, those who use the third-party social media client HootSuite. "Although still experimental, Promoted Tweets is a major component of the company's plans to capitalize on its growing reach," writes Seattlepi.com.

Virgin, Starbucks and Red Bull have reportedly signed on to try the new ads, short Twitter messages that appear with the label "promoted by." At present, Twitter has over 175 million registered users worldwide. Hesitant to alienate even one of those users, however, Twitter is treading lightly with its ad strategy. "We're carefully looking at how Twitter users react to and engage with Promoted Tweets in the timeline, Twitter spokesman Matt Graves said in a blog post. "We want to display Promoted Tweets in a way that's both useful and authentic to the Twitter experience."

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