Well, interesting discussion, but IMO Nick just nailed it by asking;
"Would you be okay if we posted ad comments" - there is no difference, both are commonly known as SPAM.
I follow links in Smashing Mag's tweets and don't mind ads in the articles.
I've even been known to click on an ad link in an article page on occasion but in a 160 character tweet an ad isn't appropriate.
Provide me quality info the resources tweeted about and put your ads on those pages. Put them in the tweet or as the only link in a tweet and I'll unfollow.
It's not like you're spending so much of your time composing tweets that you have to send out ads to pay for them. Or, if you are, you need to take a class or something. ;-)
I'm perfectly fine with unfollowing in favor of an RSS feed, if it comes down to twads.
I would also unfollow you if you started ad-tweets. As if we don't get enough meaningless ad-garble thrown at us on every other website we visit. Twitter is a refuge because it *doesn't* have ads on it. I like SM a lot, but not enough to tolerate such a practice.
Get your advertisers to give away free stuff (some sample of their products or some freebies linked to their products, eg. "10 free Dalt Wisney wallpapers" and so on)? Present these free things to your readers in articles? Link these articles in tweets?
As for the poll, I voted no. Ads are fine on your site (because of your quality content), but tweets, no. Get me to visit smashingmagazine.com and show me the ads there, but don't clutter my twitter feed, please. :)
I have nothing wrong with ads as long as they are on-topic and possibly useful to your target audience, and that they make up a small percentage of your tweets. Your stream will be evaluated as a whole, including the ads, and if they lower the overall quality of your stream enough I will unfollow. It has nothing to do with whether you are getting paid for the tweet or not. Keep the ads relevant and useful and it's a win-win for everyone.
JF - 14 years ago
I don't follow people to read ads.
Jon - 14 years ago
Nope, can't support it. It's hard b/c I know it's a good source of revenue, but you're really diluting your content and testing your track record with your readers when you do it. Not to mention the fact that seeing regular ad tweets from an entity as large and influential as SM will totally push others to try and do the same, and the last thing a lot of web devs want is more ads clogging their feeds.
Kip - 14 years ago
Sorry, but doesn't Smashing Magazine already make money off the 10+ ads on every blog post page that I get to via their Tweets?
You're making all of your fans filter through your content now, whereas before they just assumed it was "high quality" they were reading every time.
Smashing Magazine posts some of the most quality material out there. They deserve to make money to continue creating great content. Ads help support the quality content, so as long as its clearly marked and not clogging the communication channels there's absolutely no harm in serving up ad tweets.
Casper - 14 years ago
Tweet an ad one single time, and you will immediately lose all integrity with me. I might be the odd man out on this one, but I'd definitely unfollow you the moment an ad appeared in my timeline.
People need to realize that social media is much better used for feedback and understanding, than for simple marketing purposes.
Definitely a no - not acceptable. Thx for asking first tho.
Shaun - 14 years ago
I only get 150 API calls per hour. I don't want to waste any of them on ads.
Chris - 14 years ago
Nothing could make me unfollow someone faster than ad tweets. It's not the venue...not even remotely.
A high quality tweet is a tweet that is useful and relevant and will help you find useful content, tools and resources to improve your workflwo or daily routine.
patt - 14 years ago
I will not unfollow because SM has great articles and tweets.
One Ad won't kill.
Why would we unfollow just to miss out on even better stuff.
As long as SM do not turn into another Free or Premium services, I'm fine with ads.
Matt - 14 years ago
Let's not forget the cost to Smashing's subscribers. Though I don't use twitter via SMS, there are many individuals who do. Personally, I wouldn't want to pay money for receiving ads. I believe this to be a very key difference.
Kip - 14 years ago
What makes Twitter so nice is being able to only follow who you want, and knowing that most of the time you'll want to read their tweet and follow a link they post.
When you introduce ads, it instantly makes your tweet less "reliable" as a great source of info. I would now have to scan each tweet @smashingmag makes to make sure it's not some random ad I'm probably *not* interested in.
Christopher - 14 years ago
I dont think they would be an issue for me. I follow so many people as it is your tweets get lost anyways. If it was tagged with [Ad] or something like that, I might actually be more inclined to help you guys pay your bills by clicking the link and checking out the product.
People that would unfollow probably dont use Twitter that much anyways.
Bruno - 14 years ago
What the hell IS a high-quality tweet??? Can you explain it, please? With 160 char you can post just a link and a few words...
Bondidude - 14 years ago
Love all the whiners who want something for nothing these days.
Creating high quality content takes time. Time is money. You should be able to be fairly compensated for your time and effort and reap the rewards.
As long as it's not abused and clearly marked, I don't see it as a problem. Once a day or once every couple of days should be plenty to help keep you afloat with other ad revenue on your site.
You want quality? Pay for it by allowing the people who create the content to pay their bills and continue to create the quality content you want to see or pay for it by having to use a subscription service.
So everyone is ok with ignoring the ads on smashing's site but should they have to ignore a tweet ad once and while it's a completely different story?
Mark Dingman - 14 years ago
Considering I fell for the ad tweet and went to the site, trusting that is was a site you recommended, I would say that any ads in your tweets dilute the perceived quality of your service.
I see the odd add tweet maybe 1 or 2 a week from people I respect and trust. But I would never click a advert link no matter who it came from. But if i started getting ad tweets more and more often, even if they were from God himself, I would promptly unfollow.
Stuff costs money, ads bring in money, as long as it's not every 15 mins and it's targeted to your audience, I don't think there's anything wrong.
I think four or five a day would be suitable.
Mez Jr - 14 years ago
Fundamentally Twitter is an open ended conversation with friends and those you find interesting. It's not a place where people want to be sold to. At least not mixed in with the conversation.
Honestly, I would rather NEVER see tweets with ads in them. I mean... twitter is supposed to be about community and individuals sharing ideas. I don't like the idea of being paid off to share certain ideas or websites. I understand having ads on the website itself but how much does it cost to use twitter?
You have to do what you have to do, but there is a point where the signal to noise ratio becomes too small at which point you will lose good followers.
Polluting your tweets with ads lowers the signal to noise ratio (or raises it, I never know) and basically leads to people ignoring all of your tweets. Use high quality tweets to bring people to your site where you have the ads.
Boone Zavik - 14 years ago
Would you accept a great conversation with your friend if every other call they had to give you a sales pitch? That is how i think of it, thus Ad-Tweets are very annoying.
Ad tweets are ok if they won't appear to often and will be explicitly marked as ads
Dwyndal - 14 years ago
I am torn on this issue, I know adverts help pay for time and servers. I don't think I would unfollow for ads and i'm not sure if saying 1 per week is really helpful to your bills. If they were sent out from an alternate account, sure i might consider following it but only if it were listed as say, :ADVERT: or something so that i knew what i was checking out.
Just my two pfennig
Carl - 14 years ago
Unfollow? For blatant "Ad Tweets" I'd be pretty tempted to reach for the "Report as Spam" button!
I don't even understand this question. I get 'ads' from sources I trust and follow. And, I only follow good folk, so I get high-quality tweets. What are you on about.
Well, interesting discussion, but IMO Nick just nailed it by asking;
"Would you be okay if we posted ad comments" - there is no difference, both are commonly known as SPAM.
I follow links in Smashing Mag's tweets and don't mind ads in the articles.
I've even been known to click on an ad link in an article page on occasion but in a 160 character tweet an ad isn't appropriate.
Provide me quality info the resources tweeted about and put your ads on those pages. Put them in the tweet or as the only link in a tweet and I'll unfollow.
It's not like you're spending so much of your time composing tweets that you have to send out ads to pay for them. Or, if you are, you need to take a class or something. ;-)
I'm perfectly fine with unfollowing in favor of an RSS feed, if it comes down to twads.
I would also unfollow you if you started ad-tweets. As if we don't get enough meaningless ad-garble thrown at us on every other website we visit. Twitter is a refuge because it *doesn't* have ads on it. I like SM a lot, but not enough to tolerate such a practice.
[Ad] CNN.com for all your breaking news needs.
Would you be okay if we posted ad comments?
Get your advertisers to give away free stuff (some sample of their products or some freebies linked to their products, eg. "10 free Dalt Wisney wallpapers" and so on)? Present these free things to your readers in articles? Link these articles in tweets?
As for the poll, I voted no. Ads are fine on your site (because of your quality content), but tweets, no. Get me to visit smashingmagazine.com and show me the ads there, but don't clutter my twitter feed, please. :)
I have nothing wrong with ads as long as they are on-topic and possibly useful to your target audience, and that they make up a small percentage of your tweets. Your stream will be evaluated as a whole, including the ads, and if they lower the overall quality of your stream enough I will unfollow. It has nothing to do with whether you are getting paid for the tweet or not. Keep the ads relevant and useful and it's a win-win for everyone.
I don't follow people to read ads.
Nope, can't support it. It's hard b/c I know it's a good source of revenue, but you're really diluting your content and testing your track record with your readers when you do it. Not to mention the fact that seeing regular ad tweets from an entity as large and influential as SM will totally push others to try and do the same, and the last thing a lot of web devs want is more ads clogging their feeds.
Sorry, but doesn't Smashing Magazine already make money off the 10+ ads on every blog post page that I get to via their Tweets?
You're making all of your fans filter through your content now, whereas before they just assumed it was "high quality" they were reading every time.
Smashing Magazine posts some of the most quality material out there. They deserve to make money to continue creating great content. Ads help support the quality content, so as long as its clearly marked and not clogging the communication channels there's absolutely no harm in serving up ad tweets.
Tweet an ad one single time, and you will immediately lose all integrity with me. I might be the odd man out on this one, but I'd definitely unfollow you the moment an ad appeared in my timeline.
People need to realize that social media is much better used for feedback and understanding, than for simple marketing purposes.
Definitely a no - not acceptable. Thx for asking first tho.
I only get 150 API calls per hour. I don't want to waste any of them on ads.
Nothing could make me unfollow someone faster than ad tweets. It's not the venue...not even remotely.
A high quality tweet is a tweet that is useful and relevant and will help you find useful content, tools and resources to improve your workflwo or daily routine.
I will not unfollow because SM has great articles and tweets.
One Ad won't kill.
Why would we unfollow just to miss out on even better stuff.
As long as SM do not turn into another Free or Premium services, I'm fine with ads.
Let's not forget the cost to Smashing's subscribers. Though I don't use twitter via SMS, there are many individuals who do. Personally, I wouldn't want to pay money for receiving ads. I believe this to be a very key difference.
What makes Twitter so nice is being able to only follow who you want, and knowing that most of the time you'll want to read their tweet and follow a link they post.
When you introduce ads, it instantly makes your tweet less "reliable" as a great source of info. I would now have to scan each tweet @smashingmag makes to make sure it's not some random ad I'm probably *not* interested in.
I dont think they would be an issue for me. I follow so many people as it is your tweets get lost anyways. If it was tagged with [Ad] or something like that, I might actually be more inclined to help you guys pay your bills by clicking the link and checking out the product.
People that would unfollow probably dont use Twitter that much anyways.
What the hell IS a high-quality tweet??? Can you explain it, please? With 160 char you can post just a link and a few words...
Love all the whiners who want something for nothing these days.
Creating high quality content takes time. Time is money. You should be able to be fairly compensated for your time and effort and reap the rewards.
As long as it's not abused and clearly marked, I don't see it as a problem. Once a day or once every couple of days should be plenty to help keep you afloat with other ad revenue on your site.
You want quality? Pay for it by allowing the people who create the content to pay their bills and continue to create the quality content you want to see or pay for it by having to use a subscription service.
So everyone is ok with ignoring the ads on smashing's site but should they have to ignore a tweet ad once and while it's a completely different story?
Considering I fell for the ad tweet and went to the site, trusting that is was a site you recommended, I would say that any ads in your tweets dilute the perceived quality of your service.
I see the odd add tweet maybe 1 or 2 a week from people I respect and trust. But I would never click a advert link no matter who it came from. But if i started getting ad tweets more and more often, even if they were from God himself, I would promptly unfollow.
Stuff costs money, ads bring in money, as long as it's not every 15 mins and it's targeted to your audience, I don't think there's anything wrong.
I think four or five a day would be suitable.
Fundamentally Twitter is an open ended conversation with friends and those you find interesting. It's not a place where people want to be sold to. At least not mixed in with the conversation.
Honestly, I would rather NEVER see tweets with ads in them. I mean... twitter is supposed to be about community and individuals sharing ideas. I don't like the idea of being paid off to share certain ideas or websites. I understand having ads on the website itself but how much does it cost to use twitter?
You have to do what you have to do, but there is a point where the signal to noise ratio becomes too small at which point you will lose good followers.
Polluting your tweets with ads lowers the signal to noise ratio (or raises it, I never know) and basically leads to people ignoring all of your tweets. Use high quality tweets to bring people to your site where you have the ads.
Would you accept a great conversation with your friend if every other call they had to give you a sales pitch? That is how i think of it, thus Ad-Tweets are very annoying.
I've voted yes. Though it all depends on your opinion of high quality tweets.
Ad tweets are ok if they won't appear to often and will be explicitly marked as ads
I am torn on this issue, I know adverts help pay for time and servers. I don't think I would unfollow for ads and i'm not sure if saying 1 per week is really helpful to your bills. If they were sent out from an alternate account, sure i might consider following it but only if it were listed as say, :ADVERT: or something so that i knew what i was checking out.
Just my two pfennig
Unfollow? For blatant "Ad Tweets" I'd be pretty tempted to reach for the "Report as Spam" button!
I'm ok with ad-tweets up to 1 tweet per day, but no abusing....
I don't even understand this question. I get 'ads' from sources I trust and follow. And, I only follow good folk, so I get high-quality tweets. What are you on about.
Absolutely not, I only follow people because they give high quality tweets. Should you start doing Ad-tweets I'll promptly unfollow you.