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Tech Report: Twitter Launching Advertising Program To Promote Small Businesses

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— Twitter is launching a new advertising program in conjunction with American Express aimed at amplifying the tweets of small businesses.

For instance - if one of these small businesses were to tweet "come to my coffee shop and check out our new brew" - not only would it be sent to a larger audience, they would also promote your account to try to get the merchant more followers.

It's a natural extension of the direction Twitter has been going and, in a sense, it takes a cue from Google's automated way for businesses to sign up for adware. Many small businesses already do that, with the advantage being that they don't have to talk to an ad-sales person, they just sign themselves up and it increases their visibility.

KCBS Tech Report:

If you're on Twitter, you may have noticed promoted tweets and trends associated with larger businesses, but this will be outreach for mom-and-pop, so to speak. American Express has previously done a good job of working with these types of smaller businesses, although a different pricing model is obviously suspected.

But the inevitable question remains: Will your Twitter feed get overwhelmed with advertising?

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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