What do Best Western, Dell, Gatorade, Groupon, HBO, JetBlue, LivingSocial, Microsoft Xbox, Red Bull, Sephora, Starbucks, Summit Entertainment’s 50/50, TNT, Virgin America and charities like, Make-a-Wish Foundation, Room to Read, American Red Cross, and Water.org all have in common?

If you follow any of them on Twitter, you’ll be seeing them high on your Twitter Feed.

Twitter announced it will prioritize Promoted Tweets,  when Twitter users subscribe to the feeds of brands, businesses, or charitable organizations (see above) tweets from those entities will automatically appear near the top of timelines.

Other than receiving preferential treatment, the Promoted Tweets are identical to regular Tweets, appearing only once and easily removed.

According to the Twitter Blog:

We all come to Twitter to connect with the latest information on the topics and people we care about. So when we decide to follow a favorite brand, business, or charitable organization, we expect to be among the first to get a special announcement, access to exclusive content, or a great offer.

…to ensure that the most important Tweets from the organizations you follow reach you directly, by placing them at or near the top of your timeline. These Promoted Tweets will scroll through the timeline like any other Tweet, and like regular Tweets, they will appear in your timeline just once. Promoted Tweets can also be easily dismissed from your timeline with a single click.

From the start, our philosophy around advertising has been simple: We put our users first and strive to create products that enrich the Twitter experience for every Twitter user. We’re excited about this next step and look forward to your feedback

A reminder: Twitter says, promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets paid for by advertisers in order to reach a wide group of users or to spark engagement from their existing followers.

Eventually the new prioritized Promoted Tweets will be available to all paying brands/non-profits.

Twitter is looking for your feedback.  Follow and provide feedback at:  http://twitter.com/#!/feedback