Twitter is targeting small and medium sized businesses with a tactic that works well for Google – a self-service ad platform. The company has not formally announced it, rather executives have quietly confirmed that Twitter is starting to roll it out on a select basis.

However, the intent of the product is clear: with self-serve adds accounting for some 60% of Facebook’s global advertising revenue, Twitter is looking to pick up a significant business constituency.  A self-service program should help Twitter entice more small and medium-size businesses "since companies will be able to buy ads with a credit card with no human involvement," eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson told the San Francisco Chronicle.

One of Many New Products

Twitter has been giving companies more overt advertising options in recent months, such as its Promoted Tweets to Followers — a service that lets advertisers insert their ads directly in the timelines of those consumers that are following them on the Twitter.com site.  It has also promised to expand the offering to analyze the followers of a given company's feed, then send ads to those users who aren't following, but have similar interests and friend lists.

More recently, Twitter began — also quietly — updating to its Timeline feature.  Earlier this year, it launched a follow button.

From Zero to $150M

At the beginning of 2011, eMarketer predicted that Twitter would earn $150 million in revenues for the year, a substantial increase over revenues of $45 million during 2010, the first year Twitter sold advertising. By 2012, ad revenues on the site will reach $250 million, it predicted.

Twitter Leads Social Media Sharing Growth

Another metric of its success: Twitter led all social networks in the percentage increase of sharing by members from launch until now, according to Unruly Media. It found that from its inception until now, shares on Twitter grew an astounding 35,356%. This was more than six times the 5,809% growth in Facebook Likes.