The hottest thing on the media buying circuit these days is using Twitter feeds in ad placements. These are Ad units on websites that will display updated tweets from a branded Twitter page. You can have multiple hot spots in the ad unit but the most obvious click-through of course is to the Twitter page where all the Tweets for the brand can be read. This is a relatively cheap and viable solution for offering brand content through a paid media placement.  Or is it?

You still need to employ a copywriter to write all the tweets. You may also need to employ an auto-tweet service to randomly re-tweet from a stock-pile of twitter content. You still have to pay for the ad placement. The only place you are really saving money is by virtue of having a free Twitter page to launch this micro-content from – right?  Well, if you signed up for a free Blog account such as WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger, you would get even more functionality and you could still write posts in under 140 characters.  What’s more, for very little cost, you can have your own branded domain on any of these free blog services.  You can also just as easily feed your ad placement from your blog posts.

So what’s in it for brand when they use Twitter as opposed to just using a blog? Not much, other than driving traffic to Twitter on the brand’s dime in the hopes that those visitors will be interested enough to only stay on the branded Twitter page.  The risk of course is that visitors will wander and explore other Twitter pages and eventually forget about the page that brought them there in the first place.  So again, why not brand a blog and at least get visitors focused on your brand?

It all depends on your objectives. If your brand is trying to funnel traffic to a product site, your media dollars are better spent keeping visitors focused on a consistent brand experience rather than bouncing them through Twitter. If your goal is to try and garner more brand awareness through Twitter, keep in mind that on the initial click through, it’s Twitter that is getting the payoff. In order for a brand to reach its ROI on such an ad placement, you have to bet on a percentage of users continuing their journey to the brand’s website.

The moral of the story: Feeds to ad placements are a great idea. Consider carefully where you launch your feeds from and where the payoff will be.