Twitter isn’t quite taking on Amazon.com head-to-head, but the micro-blogging service is venturing into e-commerce in its own unique way. Twitter is launching a new service to point customers to some of the best deals on the web. The service will compete with a growing number of deal sites like Groupon, Livingsocial and Tippr.
Dubbed @earlybird, Twitter’s latest venture will tweet exclusive offers from major brands. Twitter described the offers as “special time-bound deals, sneak peeks, and events.” The program seems to play off of, or at least complement, Twitter’s recently launched Promoted Tweets service. If successful, it could offer Twitter a much-needed revenue stream.
Here’s how it works: Twitter partners with select advertisers and re-tweets offers those advertisers craft specifically for the Twitter community. Advertisers frame the terms of the offer, including availability, amount and price. Currently, there are no offers, so the first tweet says, “I get the worm, now you can too,” then points users to information about the program.
Following in Dell’s Footsteps
Why is Twitter doing this? The social-media phenom sees @earlybird as a way to bring added value to its members. Plenty of companies are already using Twitter to offer special promotions.
One of the best examples is Dell, which has seen millions of dollars in revenue from sending special deals to its Twitter followers. The new service consolidates the offers from across Twitter into one account for deal-hunting members. Twitter warned that the offers are time-sensitive and sometimes supply sensitive and may run out quickly.
“This is very interesting and consistent with the larger ‘daily deals’ or social-commerce segment of which Groupon is an example,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “In addition, many companies have been doing promotions through their Twitter accounts or selling merchandise for quite a long time. Dell is one…