Twitter Supports Small Business Saturday with Free Promoted Tweets

To help support Small Business Saturday, Twitter is offering $1 million in free ads for small businesses. The first 10,000 eligible businesses in the U.S. will get $100 in free advertising credits each, which can be put towards promoting tweets or promoting their own twitter accounts.

Since launched in February, Twitter Ads for small business has been used by thousands of business owners to quickly gain new followers, reach new customers, and drive more traffic. The credits don’t have to be used this weekend; Twitter is keeping the offer open until December 14.

Twitter partnered with American Express, the founder of Small Business Sunday on a similar offer back in February.

One featured success story was Hampton Coffee Company in New York. By taking advantage of Twitter’s Promoted Account feature, the coffee shop grew its followers by 50 percent in just a few weeks.

Brennen Lukas, Co-Owner of Whipped Bakeshop in Philadelphia, said new followers who are local are crucial for their business.

“We’ve been very happy with our Twitter advertising campaign,” said Brennen. “Advertising on Twitter introduced us to hundreds of new potential customers in a relatively short period of time. It’s really exciting to be connected to so many more people every week.”

This Small Business Saturday promotion also benefits Twitter. The social site will garner free press for helping entrepreneurs across the country while demonstrating and shoring up their advertising base. By showing real world examples of how their advertising system works, potential clients who might have been hesitant to try advertising on social networks may finally take the needed steps to move forward on their advertising campaigns.