Boston, MA 11/26/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is having to fight each inch of the way for garnering more revenues from advertising. With social media advertising expected to grow from $4.7 billion this year to $11 billion by 2017 in the U.S alone, social media giants Twitter and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) are increasing facing off against each other.
Retailers are among the biggest spenders on digital advertising media. The industry lends itself to this platform more closely than any other industry. With multiple products and ever changing schemes and discounts, retailers look at on line targeted advertising to satisfy their needs. They contribute to 22% of the total online advertising revenues in 2012 and are expected to contribute $13.5 billion by 2017, up from $9.4 billion this year. This segment uses all forms of online advertising media like search engines as well as social media sites. The segment also spends heavily during the last quarter as well as the traditional holiday shopping season in the western world.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) lags behind in this segment. It has weaned away J. J. Hirschle from Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) to head its pitch to the retailers. The company has already approached the big-wigs of the retail industry. There are three main issues that Hirschle will have to confront at least this year
- Most of the retailers have already frozen their budgets prior to Hirschle’s joining in October.
- Retailers seem to prefer advertising on Facebook and even Pinterest rather than on the micro-blogging site. These sites offer more space for images to be displayed.
- Retailers do not expect social media to drive consumers to their portals. In fact, 80% of retailers surveyed expect these social media sites to drive less than 0.5% of sales this holiday season.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is taking steps to change this. It is including promoted posts in user’s message streams. This will allow for more targeted advertising and will also convert eyeballs to actual sales.
