Real Time Local Advertising – a New Business Model

@Guy: Twitter advertisements, for web 2.0 culture reasons, will need to be served within a framework that accepts Twitter as an interruption marketing vehicle. For example, the ads might be served via a local online newspaper that traditionally served Thursday print circulars. In context, the "ads", 140-char snippets that announce sales and coupons, would be a service local consumers are now missing. For example, when I need to buy office supplies, I have no idea whether Office Depot, Office Max or Staples is having a sale... but one of them always does.

Next, the true value of Twitter is the P2P interaction, probably best exemplified by @zappos service. And you're correct that the SMB and its employees needs to be educated on how to provide that P2P service quality above and beyond the ad blast.

@Tim as you know, we believe local merchants can understand how a simple real time (& free) advertising service could benefit their community outreach. There will be a lot of hyperlocal applications evolving with Twitter as the content/information distribution hub. Local directories like http://localtweeps.com are being populated. Craig Newmark promotes #LocalDay (http://is.gd/rWTk) on May 1 when everybody tweets their zipcode with a hashtag (like #94118) so neighbor tweeps can find each other through the http://search.twitter.com tool.

Then we'll see the development of these hyperlocal Twitter based informational or "breaking news" vehicles. A prototype exists at http://breakingshoppingnews.com. What Twitter provides to a community is an easy 15-second way to share local information, news and... naturally, real time ads in context. This will begin to replace the commercial void being created by the demise of local newspapers.

A good place to start educating SMBs on the benefits of real time, incentive-driven (coupon) advertising via twitter, facebook, et al. would be the local business associations and/or chamber os commerce. In Boston, for example, we have a program called Main Streets whose mission is to promote local businesses--nieghborhood by neighborhood. May of these associations have monthly meetings and educational seminars designed to keep SMBs abreast of a variety of topics. Also, most of these assocaitions have emailing list for all the SMBs in their area.
Some smart, progressive ad agency might put some boots in the field and promote such a wonderful idea, but it does require getting the word out on the street. Face to face contact is still important for many of these SMBs to explain the potential of systems like this before they take action. Great idea though

Pat, you work the virtual angle and I'll work the mean (real) streets of Boston, and together maybe we can bridge the digital gap:)

Just curious where these real-time Twitter ads are going to be served? Via the print publication's Twitter account, aka, more interruption marketing? Via a 3rd-party that depends on #search to generate impressions?

The true value of Twitter comes from P2P interaction, not B2C, so local businesses would be better off establishing their own presence and serving "real-time" ads straight to their audience as a small piece of their overall contribution to the stream.

I have been working for about a year to get a real time advertising platform, and finally managed it with coupons tied to sms delivery.

You are right on target when you say the challenge is to get the business owners to take time out to learn how to use the technology that is available to promote their businesses online. I have found that creating training videos using camtasaia and jing work wonders.

People hate reading manuals - they will watch a 3 minute movie...

Ray
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