Well, the day has come. Twitter has just released its advertising platform. The idea relies on inserting sponsored results, yes; any resemblance to Adwords is mere coincidence. The way to calculate its cost will be by CPM (cost per thousand impressions), the same that Adwords. But there is a substantial difference. Sponsored tweets will be qualified with an index called "resonance", ergo, the ability to impact the net with their spread.

Do not try to understand how resonance is calculated. In the same way that many SEO specialists do not need to know details about the Pagerank´s algorithm in order to make an effective SEO, do not want to discern the features of the resonance formula. It is enough to say that it is based on a algorithm, which is used to draw graphics. Imagine that you take a blank. Draw a little circle in the middle, and write your name. Now, like sun rays, draw a line for each one of your contacts. Then you will have become a node. Do the same with your contacts. The Graphics gets more complex, and the Fruchterman-Reingold´s algorithm, which is based on electrically charged particles dynamics, is required to understand it.

Then, as regards to Twitter and its tweets, to put it crudely, the repercussion of these sponsored tweets will redound on improvements to the CPM we pay for. This way, replies and retweets become especially important. And their hashtags could end among the trending topics.

So far, we have merely mentioned the descriptive aspect. Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, has already said it to the Chirp: "We’ve got 160 millions of users and we intend to make money". Ok, that is understandable. Now, let’s take the advertiser’s place. This is too new as to make comparisons with Adwords´ campaigns. However, that is a valid query: Should I invest a fraction on these "sponsored tweets", or should I keep to my Adwords´ campaigns, which have provided such good results?

The basic question is which the comparative ROI for both patterns is. I insist, too new to know. Up to now, many were happy just with the improvement on the networking and the online reputation achieved by the participation on social networks. Nevertheless, plenty of companies have been able to establish solid sale channels through Twitter, from small restaurants which promote the dish of the day, or Pizza Hut, which announce its new flavors, to Dell, which has made important profits thanks to this social network (more than 6,000,000 dollars in 2009, when Twitter was virtually in divers, remember? Now that tweets have become sponsored, will it be worth to invest on them? Would you click on a sponsored tweet? Does the microblogging format support this PPC patterns structure? To many questions for now, we’ll have to see how advertiser behave, and we’ll have to wait for the first "success stories" to decide if it is a viable option.