Is Twitter Advertising Really Valuable for Marketers?

Twitter has been quite aggressive in the past few months to prove that it is worth the valuation it has got in the recent times. Its valuation has soared to $8 billion recently which has made it many a critic’s target as it is still to come with any profitable business. According to an article published in Ad Age, by June 2011, it has partnered with more than 600 companies for their advertising campaigns.

The  article also shares a summary of advertising campaigns of four different brands: Unilever’s Magnum ice cream, CMT Music Awards, Zuji  Australia and RadioShack. All these brands have definitely got the results but if you see closely, the results are in terms of just Twitter metrics. These brands have got lot of followers, retweets and mentions of hashtags but when it comes to the earning call, there are no results in terms of direct impact on increase in sales.

According to me, Twitter advertising in its present form is not compatible with the business goals of companies. Twitter advertising will ultimately be of worth to marketers or businesses only if they can incorporate some elements which lead to increase in sales and which can be tracked through some dedicated dashboard.

What do you think Twitter needs to incorporate to enhance its advertising solution?