US online news service The Huffington Post has begun offering marketers an option to insert paid comments into the publication’s Twitter feed.

The service will allow advertisers to place paid tweets among the Post‘s live news and events feed.

Critics have suggested that the plan may be rejected by followers as being disruptive, but the Post‘s chief revenue officer Greg Coleman indicated that marketers will receive guidance from resident community experts on how to join conversations.

“You cannot use the social engagement for the purposes of really hawking your products. The advertiser is really put in a position where they need to add value to the conversation that’s taking place,” explained Coleman.

Backing the success of the program is the Post‘s high level of traffic, which reportedly topped 72 million hits in March 2009.

To support the initiative, Coleman insinuated that new sales staff would be hired in the New Year and third-party research on its traffic will likely occur.