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Social network X (Twitter) has started testing a new advertising format that places a recommendation with a link to a product or service directly below a post that mentions the company or its product.
The first example of this experiment was noticed by users in Europe. Under a post in which one of the authors wrote that Starlink ‘s satellite Internet service works great in Portugal, a prompt appeared with the call to “Get Starlink.” Clicking on this element redirected the user directly to the service’s official website. Nikita Beer, Head of Product at X Corp, confirmed that such an experiment is indeed underway. Commenting on the new format, he briefly explained the concept: “Trying to create an advertising product that doesn’t look like an ad.” At the moment, the Starlink example ad is not displayed for all users of the platform. However, even in regions where the test is not yet active, you can see an empty block in the feed designed to accommodate such an element.
If you open the post by Peter Leavels of March 6, who posted a screenshot of the situation, you can see a box with a space for this block below the text of the message. Currently, it shows a random post from the same platform if the user is in a region where the ad test has not yet been launched. In those countries where the new format is already working, some commentators have noticed the appearance of an additional element below the post. One of them even joked and asked: “Haha, did you add that Starlink button?” In the same discussion, Beer responded to a suggestion to allow affiliate links in this ad slot. He said: “No, then people will lie. I want to trust the recommendations here.”
At the time of publication, X Corp. representatives did not provide an official comment to journalists. This experiment comes shortly after another news about changes on the platform. Earlier this week, the company announced the launch of special “Paid Partnership” tags for content creators. These tags can be added to posts to comply with social media advertising rules, replacing the use of hashtags such as “ad” or “paid partnership.”
If such sponsored posts by authors are combined with integrated links to advertisers in the future, similar to what is currently being tested, this could make the platform more attractive to marketers. In this case, the use of the service by content creators may increase, which will help it compete more effectively with large social networks popular among creators, such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
The desire to attract more author’s content to the platform did not appear today. The company has been moving in this direction for many years, since the days when the service was called Twitter and before it was acquired by Elon Musk. However, despite various attempts, the platform has not yet been able to fully establish itself as a key platform for creators.
During this time, the service has introduced many tools for authors. These include payments for viral content, an advertising revenue sharing program, author subscriptions, and other features. This week, the company has also updated the Creator Subscriptions feature, adding a number of new features. Among them is a tool that allows creators to monetize individual threads.
In addition, on Friday, the platform announced that its integrated chatbot Grok now has the ability to read long-form content published in the Articles section on X. At the same time, this format is still used to a limited extent, as authors who create voluminous textual materials often prefer to publish on their own websites or in newsletters.
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