Twitter is borrowing a TV ad sales strategy to make it easier for brands to advertise against the live event-related conversations that the social network is known for.

Throught a new feature called event targeting, advertisers will be able to check out a schedule of upcoming live events within a dedicated calendar, look over information about that event like its potential audience size and then buy promoted tweets that will be shown to people within a seven-day window of when the event is scheduled to take place.

Twitter is rolling event-based ad targeting out widely after testing it with WPP agencies MEC and Mindshare U.K. as well as social ad firm SocialCode.

By letting marketers schedule campaigns potentially months before an event occurs, Twitter is effectively adopting TV networks' upfront ad sales strategy, in which networks present the shows a brand can sponsor months in advance in order to spur interest and investment.

However, unlike the TV upfronts, Twitter isn't looking to use its new Local Events this Weekend targeting option to sell all of the available inventory way before the event even takes place. Ameet Ranadive, Twitter's senior director of revenue product, said there are no limits on the number of advertisers that can buy ads against a given event and that the event-targeting feature is designed to make it easier for big brands and smaller advertisers to have an equal chance to advertise during a given event.

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