Make Money Online with Sponsored Tweets
Yesterday, IZEA CEO Ted Murphy pulled the covers off his newest money maker, Sponsored Tweets. Sponsored Tweets is a new Twitter advertising platform that connects advertisers with Tweeters. Advertisers can create sponsored conversations on Twitter. Tweeters can earn money for spreading the word. Think of it as the Pay Per Tweet version of Pay Per Post.
Sponsored Tweets is not the first service offering to pay Twitter users for sending our tweets. However, it is the most ambitious and best funded. To kick things off, Sponsored Tweets launched with a bunch of big name Twitter celebrities like Playboy Playmate, Holly Madison and comedian, Carrot Top. There’s also a star studded line up of Internet celebrities like Shoemoney, Neil Patel and yours truly.
I will be looking at Sponsored Tweets from both the advertiser side and the Tweeter side. For this post, I want to show what Sponsored Tweets offers the Twitter user looking to make money online.
One Click Sign Up Process
Signing up for a Sponsored Tweets account is super easy. Just click the “click here to sign up” button and you’re pretty much done. Sponsored Tweets uses the new Twitter authorization system to get your information and load it into the control panel. This makes it impossible for someone signing up with your Twitter name.
Once in your Sponsored Tweets control panel, you can fill out your information and set your tweet price. There are two price model – charge per tweet and charge per click. Both are control by the users. How much you can charge depends on many factors. Generally, the more followers and “celebrity” status you have, the more you can charge. Because I didn’t have a reference to go on, I set my tweet price at $125. I have since increased it to $250.
All tweets sent by Sponsored Tweets must be 100% disclosed. Sponsored Tweets ensures this with an automated disclosure engine. This is done by adding a tag like #ad or “this tweet brought to you by”. The tweeter can choose which tags or phase to use.
$250 From Two Tweets
As part of my preparation for writing this post, I had to log into my Sponsored Tweets accounts to shoot some screen shots. I wasn’t really expecting to see two opportunities waiting for me, each paying $125.
The first opp, by Uncrate, required me to just tweet what they wrote. The second opp allowed me to choose what to say and how I want to disclosed. The sending of the tweets is performed by Sponsored Tweets. Once you accept an opp, the Sponsored Tweets engine will do the rest. You do not copy and paste it to your Twitter account.
If you accept an offer, your account will be credited within 24 hours of your tweet. You can cash out once your account reaches $50. Sponsored Tweets makes money by taking a commission from the advertisers. They do not take a cut of your tweet price. In order words, that $250 will be paid to me in full. Next time, I’ll be looking at Sponsor Tweets from an advertiser’s point of view. Can you make money paying Tweeters to tweet your message? Check back later for the answer.
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- What Do Tweeters Think of Sponsored Tweets? Twitter Users Speak Out | John Chow dot Com - August 6, 2009 at 11:01 am
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Oh John boy! Yer late on this writeup
Just a note one of my accounts was killed by twitter for doing this.
Is it against their TOS? Sponsored Tweets sounds pretty much identical to Magpie in nature.
According to CEO Ted, they have Twitter’s approval for Sponsored Tweets. Gary’s account may have been banned for other reasons.
Yeap that’s right. Twitter approves of Sponsored Tweets application.
Now this is the best time to get as many followers as possible because it will bring in easy money. Twitter is a money maker by itself!
Yea, the more twitter followers we have, the higher the chance to get an advertiser to order a sponsored tweet with our twitter account. I’m still on the way to build up my followers list, it’s slow..
Regards,
Lee
I just checked through Twitters TOS and the only item that may apply here is in the SPAM section. Sponsered Tweets could be considered SPAM if your account is only posting those and not posting any real content. Otherwise if the tweets come out occasionally and you maintain other quality tweets then this would just be another tweet as far as twitter is concerned.
The problem there is that it is highly debateable what they mean by “real content”. You cannot go much in depth with only 140 characters.
Too bad I signed up last week with Shoemoney.
Doesn’t matter. There’s no referral program.
Now people think if we write about something that can be only a referral program … lollz
That was my first thought as well. It is nice to see that John is promoting more than just the things that ensure profit for him.
It’s due to the fact most of people include referral link to make money. I also thought it was a referral link untill John said it wasn’t…
you got it right, i always look at the bottom of every other site whether it runs any referral program.
I wonder why they haven’t setup a referral program yet or if they are going to.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I’d love to hear a follow-up on your successes/experiences with this, John.
Personally, I see Twitter is becoming a mad race to get the largest number of followers and the entire thing is so bogged down with everyone trying to push their crap onto everyone else!
I think it will take celebrity status to realize success from the Tweeter side of things…so you’ll probably enjoy it:)
Brad
It also may just take being a well known within a very specific niche. Certainly you will be less likely to get the immediate $125 per tweet opportunities, but if you have 5,000 highly targeted followers, then you may be able to enjoy the occassional $50 tweet.
Many advertisers will try something once if it is within their budget. If you produce a positive ROI, then they will be back to pay you more money!
Hey John,
I’m with Brad, please share your experiences on this after you’ve used the service for a while.
Thanks,
Karl
thats great that you had an offer, but i signed up and my suggested payment for a tweet was a buck but i had no offers so i could not even make a buck
Thanks for sharing John! I remember when ShoeMoney posted about this new Izea service- don’t fully understand it as of yet – but definitely gonna check it out…thanks for sharing.
They have a simple application or registration, just click sign up and fill in your twitter signin info, then just fill your rate per tweet and so on. It took me less than 10 minutes to finish the application. I’m waiting for advertiser now.
Regards,
Lee
Seems great, but I think it’s difficult to get an advertiser if we don’t have huge followers. Other than this, John do you have any idea of how to get advertiser? I have only about 600+ followers.
Regards,
Lee
I’m also wondering about it, John could certainly give us some more tips about both : how to get more subscribers as well as more advertisers.. I’m sure John already wrote about it, even about advertisers, but it wasn’t for twitter..
Yea, John did mention about how to get more subscribers in the previous post, but I think I’ll be more interested to learn how to get advertiser in Twitter.
Regards,
Lee
Intriguing all right. I’m really interested in monetizing twitter and this seems like a good place to start.
At least Uncrate.com was one of the paid sponsors. I like that site. They just put my product Ladder Golf up! Great response. Have you played Ladder Golf before John?
Nice payout John..I signed up last week, and get my 1st offer which is 2.25$ only. It is much lower than yours since I only have 900+ followers.
I have also joined SponsoredTweets and made $3 from it ^_^
I think in the long run you would be better off building your following on Twitter and then selling tweets. I fear you may lose followers that were on the fence about you when you start tweeting out ads for $3 a pop.
I already got income from this way
Sounds like a great way to monetize your twitter account. I will give it a try.
Really best way to get more money from Twitter.
Now twitter is a fun and money making machine.
I need more followers. I’m getting around $7 per tweet…and I’ve just had one.
Maybe I should just jack up the price….lol
Going to give it a try. Signed up! Nice post John Chow. I think it`s the first one I read real fast.-You The Man!
Signed up already…
Hi
I can’t see how they pay out?
Are they using Paypal or other services?
They use PayPal but you can elect check payment as well.
I guess its too early for them and its quite a new service but they dont seem to have the option to enter your paypal ID yet.
Yes they do. It ask for it when you go to cash out. But you need to hit the $50 limit before that shows up.
Looks better then be-a-magpie, the earnings there are pitiful, SY
Mostly users with more than 5K will be getting opportunities of getting their tweets sponsored. Any many will use software like FriendAdder and get a lot of many. Blackhat
This might as well be the end of Twitter, if it allows it. Imagine SPAM and advertising (usually the same way) going through your tweets.
I really hope it won’t go too well, but maybe that’s just me.
I will certainly encourage the spammy attempts at gaining large followers. However, the bottom line is that the spammy attempts at gaining followers are going to have a number of followers that gloss over your tweets.
If you don’t have high quality followers, the ROI for the advertiser will go down, and you will start to get less ad opportunities.
Which makes me think that IZEA should make it easy for advertisers to rate tweeters that you can sponsor.
I saw Shoemoney’s post on this last week and signed up. Not even 24 hours later I already had an offer and made a quick $10. Definitely a cool tool.
Thanks John!
That’s great! Between, how many followers do you have right now? I’m still waiting for my first offer, I just signup few hours ago.
Regards,
Lee
Sounds like cool tool, thanks for sharing it John
Wow! I’m going to sign up right now. I only have a thousand and some followers, but that number is growing fast. Thanks!
Sending out paid tweets? Cmon…
I didn’t build my Twitter following to ruin it by sending out commercials…
great . i will join this program for SURE . thanks john , this is really a good info
until now i’m don’t understand bout twitter
Thnaks John for lots of great info. Keep up the good work.
An interesting concept, no doubt a money maker given the right following but perhaps one to be treated with care, particularly for someone looking to build relationships and lists as I guess the concern would be appearing to be one of those constant promoters and spam tweeters.
Will be interesting to look at from an advertisers POV…
I already sent my first sponsored tweet for $4
.
Lucky you! I’ll definitely subscribe to this offer, and wait untill I get the attention of some advertisers… It just sounds like there are not so many people clicking on twitter ads..
I think it depends on what kind of follower you have, but of course the more the better. Let’s say John has 57k followers right now, only 10% is valuable follower, means they will click John’s tweet ads, that’s 5700! So, the more the better, right?
Regards,
Lee
Looks good, but it’s a sure way to lose followers very quickly.
I’d have to agree with that. Who wants to lose followers by being a Twitter whore?
I think it’s safe to play, unless you’re just keep doing sponsored tweets without communicating with your followers at all.
Regards,
Lee
I added @awkwardtales to Sponsored Tweets!
Shoemoney scooped you on this story a couple days ago.
I read this post on shoemoney.
Thanks for the post John. Seems interesting and creating up an account within 10mins. I am going to try…
You are a SICK MAN John Chow. A so called online moghul like you didn’t have to resort to cheap online impersonation with your split personality at http://www.sallychow.com.
What on earth are you doing you sick man? Do you wear pampers, napkins and frilly panties when you blog like your daughter? Some pictures have been banned, may be as usual you violated copyrights just like you violated Google rules and got ass raped.
Weird people can be fun, but idiots like you who resort to any cheap tactic is a curse. Go see a psychiatrist you psycho man. I am sure your daughter won’t be pleased to know this when she is able to blog on her own. Just who are you trying to fool you sick man? Good riddance.
Props to Ted! He did, and continues to do, what others dare. No to mention he picked up the ball that Evan and Co. dropped.
Um, somebody commented here as me (Indi Samarajiva), and it’s not me, the actual person. Sorry to digress.
It would certainly be interesting if Twitter had some revenue model to pay for its servers.
Since it was not you, I have deleted the comments.
wow, you are soo damn popular. At $125 per tweet, I would just go purchase a review or traffic, which seems more reasonable.
-Mike
Sponsored Tweets – A more realistic approach, but the presumably the money would have to be shared with the content creator. Also, the limited space on the message limits the value of the sponsorship.
I think Twitter is banning such automated services
I feel they should have had a referral program that would be so cool. I came to johnchow.com to click on the link, LOL.
I dont think its against Twitters TOS
Good read John. I would be worried about the long term effects though. Just my opinion.
my tweet name is cherrysurveys
Nice blog. I have twitter account. I hope this will help me to make money online.
Sponsored Tweets is really a good opportunity to monetize our daily tweets. That is if you have a high targeted number of followers because you could make money out of the conversion made.