HootSuite Adds Paid Advertising Feature for Twitter

For those who utilize social media for commercial purposes, social media management solutions provider HootSuite Media is broadening your Twitter (News - Alert) options: specifically, paid advertising. The company announced that it has incorporated paid advertising into its dashboard in the new rollout of HootSuite Promoted Products integration for Twitter. The new module allows users to buy Promoted Tweets and manage their accounts on the HootSuite dashboard.

HootSuite is a Vancouver-based social media management system for brand management created by Ryan Holmes in 2008. The system’s user interface takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare (News - Alert), MySpace, WordPress and Mixi.

“HootSuite provides our clients with the ability to amplify their owned content, keeping them at the forefront of social advertising opportunities. This process is now a simple and efficient one,” HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes, said in a release. “The new integration allows stakeholders in social businesses to instantly buy Promoted Tweets and Accounts from their HootSuite dashboard using our secure, role-based team workflow.”

The company said the new feature will add a multitude of options for users.

"We have over six million users that rely on our software to manage and coordinate organic media strategies,” Greg Gunn, VP of business development, told CRM Buyer.

Gunn said the new integration will also save time for users. Without the integration, a user would create content and post or schedule it directly from the dashboard. To incorporate a paid ad into the mix, the user would have to navigate to the Twitter ad interface. Tweaking the ad campaign or accessing analytics would require going back and forth between the dashboard and the ad interface.

The release is also very timely. Spending on social media advertising is expected to climb to $10 billion by 2016, according to two recent BIA/Kelsey and eMarketer (News - Alert) reports.