Remember all that fuss about newspapers bidding on Google Adwords to drive traffic to their site? Well here’s a Web 2.0 twist on the idea: Al Jazeera using sponsored tweets to raise awareness of their Egypt coverage.

Twitter itself has the background. Some notable differences to Adwords are that the promoted tweets can be replied to and retweeted just like any other Tweet.

Also, interestingly, “according to Riyaad Minty, head of social media at Al Jazeera English, the @AJEnglish team is operating their Promoted Tweets campaign just like a news desk.” That’s because the content is the advertising, rather than the advertising driving users to the content.

Some metrics to come out of this, according to Twitter (they’re linking to evidence here):

• “Twitter is one of the top referrers to a site that’s seen a 2,500% jump in traffic since January 25.
• “Al Jazeera English is going to emerge with about three times more followers than it started with
• “And @AJELive, the channel’s high-volume account, has seen huge growth as well.”

H/t Laura Oliver