Twitter has always wanted tweets to include more media–whether that be photos, videos, or links to articles through Twitter Cards. Not only does it make for a more robust Twitter experience, but it paves the way for sponsored content. You know, ads.
Twitter’s been feeling the post-IPO pressure lately, as some remain skeptical of the company’s ability to grow its user base, despite success in the paid content realm. It now appears that Twitter is testing a new way to not only promote engagement, but build a framework where the users themselves are placing advertisements within their own tweets.
As first reported by Recode, Twitter is experimenting with a new video-sharing feature.
The first instance of said feature seems to be tied to the upcoming Seth MacFarlane film, A Million Ways To Die In The West. Here’s what happens when you start entering a hashtag like #AMillionWays… into Twitter for iOS:
When you select a video (‘provided’ by, not ‘promoted’ by…yet) Twitter will autocomplete the hashtag and queue up a video. You’ll have the chance to preview the video before clicking “attach”.
“A short advertisement might play before this video,” reads a message that scrolls across the video when you preview it.
Effort to replicate the feature test were unsuccessful on the Android app. Twitter kept mum in a statement about the feature.
It’s pretty obvious what Twitter has in the works here. Right?
