Twitter video hosting service TwitVid today launched SocialAds, a standalone video advertising network designed to help businesses connect directly with their audience by collecting followers and retweets for their advertising campaigns.

"Traditional means of monetizing video has heavily relied on pre-roll ads, which work great for premium content but can be quite suffocating for an end user who may only be trying to watch a short video," said Mo Al Adham, co-founder of TwitVid, in a statement. "SocialAds offers an alternative advertising solution, which provides measurable value to both advertisers and viewers. Through SocialAds' proprietary technology, media viewers are exposed to social media accounts targeted to be of high interest to them. In turn, advertisers are exposed to and gain engaged customers whom, once acquired, can be communicated with as a trusted brand."

Advertisers and agencies are shifting some of their spending to online from TV, according to an April 2010 study of digital media and marketing pros by DM2PRO and Tremor Media. In fact, 94% of those polled expect to increase online ad spending this year, with almost 45% shifting those dollars from TV, the study reported.

In a private beta test, participating brands generated more than 400 new followers in less than one hour, TwitVid said. As a result of seeing the commercials, 2% of viewers began following a brand, according to the video hosting service.

That might bode well for increased spending on online video advertising, since ad professionals want more measurable return-on-investment, the Tremor Media study found. When asked "what would influence you to buy more online video," 92% of those polled replied, "better ROI measurement," according to the study. Other popular requirements included quality content and better reach, the report said.

SocialAds' prices are based on a price-per-action model, where advertisers pay a set amount per follow or retweet and will not be charged for impressions that do not result in any action. Bidding will begin at $1 per follower and 75 cents per retweet, with higher bids receiving better placement on the advertising units.

Advertisers can bid on popular content producers and videos from the celebrities, musical artists, and professional athletes -- such as Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA, and PGA -- that have chosen TwitVid as their preferred video-tweeting service, the company said.

At some point, SocialAds also will include proprietary relevance technology that will let advertisers match their ads to the most relevant video content, target geographies, and specific languages, TwitVid said.