In the contest for Twitter’s affections, the Big Board is counting on its long courtship.
The New York Stock Exchange began wooing the microblogging service nearly two years ago, when the exchange operator became an early adopter of the service’s promoted-tweets program.
The NYSE has been paying for sponsored tweets in order to build its brand and those of its publicly listed clients since November 2011.
“We’ve had a positive experience as one of the thousands of companies using Twitter,” said an NYSE spokesman.
Forming inroads with the San Francisco startup may give the NYSE the edge as it vies with archrival Nasdaq for Twitter’s coveted listing assignment.
While no decision has been made, the smart money is betting that the NYSE will get the high-profile assignment as Twitter tries to avoid the fate of Facebook. The Nasdaq took plenty of heat over its handling of the glitch-filled Facebook IPO in May 2012.
Nasdaq also has been a Twitter user since 2008 and has been leveraging the social-media platform to promote clients and charitable works.
Judging by the number of followers, however, NYSE has another advantage over Nasdaq. It has roughly 370,000 versus 234,000 for Nasdaq, including two different accounts.
Interestingly, NYSE gained a whopping 81,000 Twitter followers in the week leading up to Twitter’s announcement it had filed for an IPO, according to tracking agency Sprout Social.