Twitter Adds Brand Pages. The Brand Pages War Gets Bigger.

Twitter announced a new look on Thursday. And the facelift came with an early holiday present for marketers – brand pages!

Twitter’s Chief Revenue Officer, Adam Bain, told Advertising Age that brand pages on Twitter were a frequent request of CMOs.

So what’s beneath the wrapping paper?

Twitter brand pages hinge mainly on two elements:

1. A branded header marketers can use to more prominently promote their logos and taglines;
2. The ability to promote a particular tweet at the top of a brand’s timeline, which can contain an embedded video or photo.

The open question is whether the long awaited brand pages will provide the firepower Twitter needs to compete with Facebook, LinkedIn and even Google+ for businesses’ attention.

Just last month, Google+ unveiled brand pages for its nascent social network. And at the ad:tech conference in New York, Google and Facebook’s top ad execs made their competing pitches to digital marketers with brand pages serving as the centerpiece.

It doesn’t appear that Twitter brand pages are open to everyone yet, but they are starting the program with a mix of B2C and B2B brands including American Express, Best Buy, Dell, Intel, Subway, H-P, to name a few.

Twitter is a must-use channel for many B2B marketers. According to a study by BtoB magazine, it ranks behind LinkedIn and Facebook as a favorite social media channel, with 67% of b2b marketers using the platform. Yet, Twitter was only the top channel for 13% of respondents.

Twitter’s launch of brand pages clearly puts it in contention with LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. But will marketers jump on board when they are likely already saddled with the duties of maintaining brand pages and groups across a growing number of social networks?

What do you think? Are you itching to start a Twitter brand page or struggling with social media burnout?