In an attempt to lure more advertisers back to the social media platform, Twitter will soon let companies control whether or not they want their ads to appear near certain tweets.

With 90% of its revenue coming from digital ads (according to Reuters), it only makes sense for social media giant Twitter to keep its existing advertisers and attract new ones. Thus, Twitter will be rolling out new ad placement controls for companies soon, according to an exclusive report by Reuters.

The report cites an email sent by Twitter to advertisers on Thursday, which states that these controls will “let companies prevent their ads from appearing above or below tweets containing certain keywords.” 

Twitter’s Attempt to Lure Advertisers Back

The new ad placement controls are seen as an effort by Twitter to entice advertisers to return to the platform. Advertisers had pulled ads from the social media platform in October when Elon Musk officially became its owner and CEO. 

It should be noted that it was reported in early November that multiple civil rights groups encouraged advertisers to pause their advertising in light of a reported increase in hate speech on the platform. CEO Elon Musk then accused these groups of breaking an agreement that they will not “try to kill Twitter by starving us of advertising revenue” if Musk agreed to form a content moderation council. This accusation has been denied by the leaders of major civil groups. 

The allegations being thrown do not change the fact that 50 of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers stopped all advertising as of November 21, according to a report by Media Matters for America. Thing is, these 50 advertisers account for almost $750 billion in advertising for 2022 alone! Moreover, an additional 7 advertisers—which account for almost $118 million in advertising also for the year 2022—have also reportedly slowed down their advertising.

In-House Content Moderation and Twitter Blue Subscription

Aside from advertising measures, Twitter is also exploring other add-on services that can be offered. For example, Reuters’ report highlights a call between a Twitter representative and an advertising industry group, where it was discussed that the company is considering in-house content moderation. 

Currently, Twitter’s content moderators are all contracted via third-party vendors and the report states that “bringing content moderators in-house would allow the platform to invest more in moderation for non-English languages.” 

Moreover, the social media platform is rolling out a revamped version of its Twitter Blue subscription on December 12. The subscription will cost $7 per month for those using the subscription on the web. On the other hand, $11 will be charged monthly for Apple users.

Accounts will then receive a verified check mark as part of the subscription purchase. Individual accounts will get the blue check mark, while gold and gray check marks will be given to company and government accounts. 

Twitter Advertising in the Philippines

To give a better view of Twitter usage and advertising here in the Philippines, here are some numbers: 10.5 million people who used social media as of January 2022 were Twitter users, per DataReportal and Statista. 

DataReportal points out, “However, Twitter restricts the use of its platform to people aged 13 and above, so it may be helpful to know that 12.6 percent of the ‘eligible’ audience in the Philippines uses Twitter in 2022.”

“Twitter’s ad reach in the Philippines was equivalent to 13.8 percent of the local internet user base (regardless of age) at the start of the year,” it adds. 

Moreover, additional data provided by Statista shows the distribution of Twitter’s advertising audience in the country as of January 2021. 76.2% are female, while the remaining 23.8% are male. With this vast number of users on the social media platform, we can infer a strong viewership—provided of course that these users stay on Twitter longer.

With that being said, Twitter has a lot of fixing to do in order to keep its users and advertisers—from fixing its advertisement packages to refining its services, and more. After all, just as advertisements are the lifeblood of the social media platform, so are its users.