MANILA, Philippines – Twitter is upping the costs of its sponsored trends service. What once started out as an $80,000 a day advertising scheme in 2010 has been raised to US$200,000 a day, up from US$150,000 per day in 2012 according to The Wall Street Journal.

Twitter explains the promoted trend advertising system is a means of allowing Twitter users to see “time-, context-, and event-sensitive trends promoted by our advertising partners. These paid Promoted Trends appear at the top of the Trending Topics list on Twitter and are clearly marked as ‘Promoted.'”

The visibility of the advertisement is high, and at the same time, everyone who sees the promoted trend knows it’s ad-sponsored, lending a sense of honesty to the proceedings.

As to whether the promoted trend system works, it will ultimately depend on the advertiser, the timing, and what’s being offered. CNET notes some big-name users, such as Virgin, HBO, and Samsung, have used the system. It will also depend on whether or not you use an official Twitter app to view your tweets, which plays a factor in the way the advertising works out. Promoted trends do not show up on 3rd party Twitter apps. 

Savvy Twitter users might go through a day without noticing a promoted trend. For everyone else, the monetization scheme for Twitter seems like a small inconvenience to pay for its continued existence as a part of the Internet. – Rappler.com