SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter has introduced a new feature that will enable advertisers to target users in their own language, the social networking giant has announced in a blog post.

It said its language targeting facility will be available to advertisers around the world through its Ads API (application programming interface) and that ads could be sent in 20 different languages.

"Language targeting can benefit marketers who want to reach a global audience with language-specific messaging, or who are in countries where large populations speak multiple languages," said Nipoon Malhotra, group product manager at Twitter.

He suggested advertisers who wanted to promote tweets to Italian-speaking football fans during the World Cup could use Italian language targeting.

Alternatively, a travel brand that wanted to target Spanish-speaking tourists in the US could combine the Spanish language feature with Twitter's existing targeting tools, such as geography, interest and keywords.

Twitter's latest initiative has been interpreted as an attempt to bolster advertising revenue from its large international following, which makes up 78% of its 255m active users, PC World reported. Its last annual report said only 27% of its total sales revenue came from outside the US 

Twitter is not the first social network to introduce language targeting, Tech Times reported, because Facebook has been promoting language targeted ads since 2009 and offers the feature in more than 50 different languages.

However, if Twitter's new offering proves effective, it could prove to be useful for advertisers.

Data sourced from Twitter, PC World, Tech Times; additional content by Warc staff