Twitter announced a new ad format called Conversational Ads that encourage users to tweet about the brands that use them. According to the company, advertisers will be able to use them to drive more earned media and brand influence.

The ads look like this:

The format looks similar to the poll feature the company recently launched to users, so people will be used to seeing these kinds of buttons even if the functionality is different.

When the user clicks one of the buttons, it opens a pre-populated tweet accompanied by the brand’s creative and hashtag buttons. The user can personalize the tweet.

Once they tweet it, the consumer gets a message from the brand thanking them:

The user’s followers will see their tweet like this:

Twitter has been beta testing the ads and says the format has seen success over the last few months. It shares a couple of quotes from brands who have tested it…

Samsung Electronics Canada CMO Mark Childs: “As one of the first global brands to use Twitter’s new conversational ad unit, we’re excited by the opportunity to initiate more meaningful conversation. To stay ahead of the curve, it’s important to continuously evolve our social media engagement strategies to help our fans get closer to the Samsung Canada brand.”

Lifetime Director of Social Strategy Marissa Vinciguerra: “We are thrilled to join forces with Twitter as a partner to launch the conversational video tool for the upcoming premiere of our new series, ‘Pitch Slapped’ on January 5th. The Tweet features voting buttons encouraging fans to engage with our creative and is a perfect match for this campaign.”

The ads are still in beta and only available for select advertisers, but those with an account team can ask about using them.

In the U.S., ad performance can be tracked using Twitter Brand Hub.

Images via Twitter