Romney campaign promotes topic on Twitter ahead of acceptance speech

Mitt Romney's speech to the Republican National Convention doesn't begin for hours, but his campaign is looking to jump-start conversation Thursday by promoting Romney and Paul Ryan as a top topic of conversation on Twitter.

#RomneyRyan2012 appears now at the top of Twitter's list of worldwide trending topics, along with a purple "promoted" symbol that indicates the hashtag was paid for by Mitt Romney for President. 

Romney's Digital Director Zac Moffatt told ClickZ this is the first time a presidential campaign has used a promoted trend, which Twitter confirmed.

Twitter rolled out promoted trends, tweets and accounts last year, and the Romney campaign has utilized promoted tweets in the past, often as a technique to counter controversies generating conversation online.

According to ClickZ, the Romney campaign also paid for the hashtag #BelieveInAmerica that was trending earlier in the day.

"This is obviously a huge day for us; we want to make sure that we're front of mind and it's very easy for people to find," Moffatt told the Wall Street Journal. "Our job here is to reduce the points of friction, any barrier to entry." 

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