A Con/Dem Nation of Twitter Promoted Tweets

When Twitter promoted tweets was launched recently, there can be few people at the grass roots level who welcomed the news.

Of course, on the other hand it's a great boon for online marketers - imagine, being able to target your tweets by trending topic, ensuring your tweet stays at the top of the tweet-list promoting a great new offer/your brand to people who are tweeting about related concepts.

Or is it? When searching in Twitter trending topics today I came across this (click the image to open in a new window):

My trending is set to London, I'm searching on a UK-specific topic (for those of you who haven't heard, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems have formed a coalition and Cameron is the new PM. Joy), 'Con/Dem Nation', however who do I see promoting their tweets at the top of the list?

Why it's only @VirginAmerica, telling me that, should I happen to be in Washington DC today I can send them a picture of my favourite monument. Apparently they're showing up purely based on the fact that their tweet includes the word 'nation'.

Are @VirginAmerica getting value for money and generating new business and followers with their promoted tweet? No. Am I pleased to see this promoted tweet hogging the space at the top of a totally irrelevant trending topic? No.

I'm not dead against promoted tweets, but poor keyword targeting is not only annoying for users, it's bad for the business who's tweet it is. In the words of the Daily Star, 'SORT IT OUT YOU CLOWNS'.