Twitter Testing New $99 A Month Automatic Promotion Service

It looks like Twitter might have found a nice middle ground between showing ads on the site and charging subscribers a monthly fee. In a move that should appear to both companies and heavy users, Twitter is introducing a $99 a month service that will give an account automatic promotion on everything is sends out.

The service “automatically amplifies your tweets and profile,” according to a Twitter e-mail, for 30 days after you pay the fee. Users can choose to target people in a certain location or people with a certain interest (not both). A list of metro areas is chosen, as well as a list of interests that can be selected.

It even includes analytics information, so you can see how much of a reach your campaign is getting. Information about new followers and clickthrough will be shown as well.

News of the feature first came from Twitter user @MattNavarra, who received a message from Twitter as a former Ads customer.

For Twitter, this is likely the best scenario they could have come up with. Users don’t have to be bothered by traditional ads, and people who sign up for the service can cancel at any time. It’s the easiest way for the site to increase revenue while still keeping things relatively normal. Power users can increase their reach without having to start a campaign, and the average user doesn’t see much of a difference.

Of course, the biggest question in all of this is whether users are willing to pay or not. The fee is certainly priced at a point where it won’t be a problem for large companies.