Washington, Sep 22: Social networking and microblogging website Twitter has approved political advertisement for the first time since its inception in 2006.

According to the Los Angeles Times, ahead of the 2012 US presidential election, Twitter has lined up presidential candidates and national party election committees as its first advertisers.

The first ad, known as Promoted Tweets, that began running is from former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's campaign.

The pilot program allows specific posts to appear in the timelines of people who follow campaigns and to pop up when certain search terms are used.

The program will also enable candidates and political committees to pay for their Twitter accounts to show up in lists of suggested accounts their users might want to follow.

The newspaper also reported that Twitter is building a political ad sales team run by Peter Greenberger.

Greenberger had earlier built and managed Google's political sales team and managed Google's work on electoral campaigns, committees and for issue advocacy groups.

Meanwhile, Adam Bain, Twitter's president of global revenue, said that Twitter had become an essential communications platforms for candidates and government officials in the last five years.

"Launching political advertising is an important step forward in that effort, making it easier for people to connect with the candidates and issues they care about," he said. (ANI)