As forms of internet marketing, including social media, continue to boom business endeavors and relationships, it’s easy to see that finding and targeting niche markets means great branding and more business opportunities.

I’ve recently relayed the news to my boss how we can directly reach nearly 700 people within our target market that live in our smaller city. It’s only going to cost us $0.56 per click. What a deal! We have Facebook to thank for that. So where’s Twitter in all of this?

Niche targeting means businesses of all sizes have a chance to compete with each other and consumers get exactly what they want, so it’s no wonder Twitter has finally implemented a way to profit from advertising.

At first, Twitter turned down advertising on its site- a smart move, in my opinion. It kept a lot of loyal people and gained more users during a time when it still wasn’t up to par with Facebook.

Currently, Twitter search volume has increased by 33% since April 2010, when it rested at 600 million daily.

Using its own platform just like any other Twitter user, Twitter has now come up with a smart way to advertise. @Earlybird is the Twitter account created by Twitter itself that will disseminate deals and promotions from advertisers that pay Twitter.

Pros:

   • Consumers can get deals and promotions when they please.
   • There’s no signing up or purchase required.
   • They can unfollow this account at anytime if they don’t want to hear about deals anymore.
   • Twitter is reinforcing that advertising is now, more than ever, controlled more by the consumer. If they don’t want to view it, they don’t have to.

Cons:

   • FOR NOW, Twitter is only offering advertising to large, international brands, such as Coca-Cola for example.
   • The advertisers set the promotions themselves, so consumers will have to stay tuned to see how good the deals really are.
   • The Tweeted deals can be time-sensitive and maybe even supply-sensitive. So to get good deals, a consumer may have to keep up with the account often.
   • For advertisers, it’s difficult right now to know how Twitter will choose advertisers. Is this method going to only work for the ones with the most cash, unlike Google and Facebook’s method?

For the future:

Twitter says @EarlyBird is looking into location-based deals for the future, which could mean @EarlyBird brother and sister accounts, such a @EarlyBirdDallas. As a consumer, I would definitely follow my respective @EarlyBird account. This would be niche advertising and marketing at its finest.

Twitter is also keeping in mind common-interest niches, such as people who like fashion or music. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Will there also be @EarlyBird_RockNRoll?

The bigger question- what will this mean for Twitter overall? Could it be the biggest news, promotions and branding hub in one or two years, surpassing Facebook? Only time will tell.