As the dust settles following Twitter and Facebooks announcements that they would be introducting ads to their apps, digital marketing agency Fortune Cookie suggests we might be paying attention in the wrong places. According to head of engagement Sally Crimes, brands should be much more interested in the fact that Twitter is selling access to two years of archived tweets.

“The data Twitter can make available to purchase is phenomenal,” says Crimes. “From sentiment and consumer behaviour, right through to demographic and geographic insights, the potential for brands to analyse this data to inform their marketing and business decisions is one well worth exploiting.”

Crimes also believes that Twitters latest mobile ad move is unsurprising, and a natural progression. “Twitter has long been a core platform for brands’ social media marketing strategies. And, with 55 per cent of users now accessing it via mobile, there’s a massive chunk of their user base that is not being exposed to promoted tweets,” she says. “Brands will always flock to where their audiences are and these social platforms will need to take this demand into consideration – its as simple as that.”