Twitter’s advertising format introduced in 2010 that placed paid posts in timelines was called Promoted Tweets.
Twitter introduced Promoted Tweets in April 2010 as part of its first major advertising program. Advertisers paid to have selected tweets displayed to relevant users, while the posts were labeled as promoted so that people could distinguish them from ordinary updates.
The format was designed to fit Twitter’s short-message environment rather than appear as a separate traditional banner. Promoted Tweets could later be targeted using factors such as interests, location, and the accounts users followed.
Promoted Tweets are sometimes confused with Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends, which were separate advertising products introduced around the same period. The name specifically refers to paid individual tweets distributed more prominently in users’ timelines or search results.