Twitter is to roll out its advertising platforms to 50 countries by the end of 2012. At six years old and with 140 million or so users, it’s high time Twitter started making some serious cash. It has three advertising platforms – promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted accounts (see video below).

Guess-timates suggest there are between 160,000-200,000 active Twitter users in Ireland. (We would welcome precise figures from Twitter though).

However, here at Digital Times what we want to know is if any brands or businesses, digital agencies or PR companies have ever bought advertising on Twitter for their brands, services or clients?

As a digital media and digital business news site, we regularly get press releases from companies and brands who have launched campaigns and ‘used’ Twitter as part of said campaigns, normally by creating a hashtag and driving engagement via a competition or ‘tweet hunt’ or some such mechanism. However, we have never heard [from agencies] of an Irish brand or company who has used promoted tweets, promoted trends or promoted accounts.

Naturally, we would be very interested if anyone out there knows of a company, brand or small business that has used Twitter’s advertising platforms. So, if you work in adland, PR, social media and/or marketing, we would appreciate your feedback.

If you work in Twitter and know of an Irish company or brand who has bought promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted accounts, please let me know. Email Stephen (at) digitaltimes (dot) ie.

At Cannes 2012, Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo said, “There is a ton of demand,” from brands looking to advertise on Twitter. However, he refused to comment on the company’s financial position or targets. “That’s one of the great things of being private, I don’t have to discuss these things,” he said.

Twitter is also offering media companies the chance to buy rich media, extended tweets, something that could prove to be a rich vein of income for it.