Coca Cola saw phenomenal results this week when they joined an online discussion using Twitter’s “promoted tweets”.

Where the usual number of visitors to click on a regular ad is around 0.02%, Coke saw impressive stats with an engagement rate of 6%.

Twitter first introduced the new advertising system in April, allowing companies such as Starbucks and Sony Pictures to pay to display their postings on pages of search results for popular topics. Disney Pixar became the first company to buy an ad within its “trending topic” section just last week.

Unlike search results, this form of sponsorship appears on the main page Twitter users see when they are logged into the service, at the bottom of the user-generated list of the 10 most popular talking points on the site.

Coke tweeted messages congratulating the England and US teams, linked to videos on YouTube and invited people to celebrate their teams’ success.

Naturally, many advertisers are now excited about the potential of social networks to promote word-of-mouth recommendations of their products.Using social networks as a business tool allows great opportunities to establish relationships with consumers that can’t be achieved through TV and press.