The online advertising rich media provider PointRoll has just released the latest marketing tool for social media. Marketers will now be able to place Twitter directly into their advertisements giving brand representatives an instant and accessible word-of-mouth portal actually incorporated into the ad unit.

Word-of-mouth marketing has gained leverage in the online customer experience as more participants are writing reviews and rating products. Visitors are looking to online ‘friends’ as trustworthy and reliable. As well, more and more studies show that the best way to convert a new customer is through a friend’s recommendation.

The strength of the new tool is that participants who view the ad unit can interact within it through tweeting about the product. Its instant gratification makes it much more engaging to consumers simply because they don’t need to go any further than where they currently are. It also has greater appeal on the marketing side as the advertisement can be placed on multiple platforms and is measurable.

“Leveraging in-ad social networking capabilities allows brands and agencies to extend the reach of their other digital efforts across Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and more importantly, connect with users to create an ongoing dialogue,” said Catherine Spurway, vice president of Strategy and Marketing at PointRoll.

PointRoll’s latest rich media advertising tool has already been used in the promotion of the movie Bruno. Universal Studios and The Visionaire Group used the tool to push streaming tweets. Consumers were able to get updates on the movie, watch videos, view photos and otherwise interact socially with the ad. During the campaign more than 1500 consumers engaged with the unit.