Twitter is a great channel for advertising in general and especially for affiliate marketing. Anyone involved with digital marketing, affiliate marketing: anyone who is part of an affiliate network or an affiliate marketing program management team: and anyone involved with digital marketing, email marketing or online sales should be involved with Twitter.

One thing that Twitter does not do that we’ve all come to expect on the Internet (and be part of to some degree) is advertising. Whether banner ads or links that drive traffic to other sites or posts or working to put advertising into the web design and build from there, online advertising is still trying out many strategies to see what will work best.

Advertising on Twitter is currently done mostly by putting a link or a promo sentence into your stream. Here are a few ideas if you want to make the most of current advertising possibilities on Twitter:

1.    Links
Advertising through your Twitter feed is a great way to get a new product out there with an eye toward lead generation. If you utilize Twitter as the social media power that it is by connecting with people, holding conversations, adding value through your tweets and tweeting your blog posts, you are building a reputation as a quality Twitter user. At that point you can mix lead generation minded ads in with your personal and business communication Twitter stream—It can also help to just call them that in the tweet. If you are solid in your connections, people will respond to the ad.

2.    Targeted Personalized Advertising
#Hashtags are a great way to search Twitter to find conversations and Twitter users who are already talking about a particular topic. Advertising being more traditionally from a corporation or network that is beamed out AT people has a chance to evolve into something where advertisers on Twitter talk TO people—the power of social media. Savvy advertisers and affiliate marketing folks can look for #hashtag conversations that match with their products and/or services. This is a gift for anyone looking for the best way to connect with a group or individuals who are already interested in a certain area. By talking TO people advertisers have a chance to create targeted, personalized advertising through a public medium, working toward lead generation while building your own reputation for adding value and being part of an evolving conversation.

Please comment or let me know if you have other ideas and thoughts on how to utilize Twitter as an advertising platform!