techSOAP

Make Money with Sponsored Tweets

This is a sponsored guest post written by Zac Johnson on behalf of Sponsored Tweets. Post powered by Sponzai

A couple weeks ago I signed up with Sponsored Tweets, a new program available through Izea. The concept of Sponsored Tweets is simply… get paid to send out tweets through Twitter. Since joining, I’ve had several opportunities come through, and have already made several hundreds of dollars. Here’s a bit more on the site and how you can make money too. View Sponsored Tweets

How does Sponsored Tweets work?
Everything about Sponsored Tweets is very simple and easy to setup. You create your account, and login with your same Twitter account info (through Twitter). Once your account is created, you just need to set how much you want to be paid per tweet, and then you wait for a new opportunity to come in. When you receive a new opportunity, you just need to approve or deny the tweet. Some advertisers write what they want you to say, but many leave that up to the tweeter. You submit the “tweet” for approved, and once approved, the money is deposit into your account.

Is this allowed by Twitter, and Ethical?
To answer the most important question, YES! This is allowed by Twitter! and Sponsored Tweets mentions this several times on their web site, as they have worked with Twitter through the process of making the site. As for being “ethical”, there is full disclosure. When a tweet is sent through Sponsored Tweets, it is seen on twitter as “sponsored by…“, “Ad“, or “brought to you by..“. It’s this full disclosure that keeps the tweeter, the advertiser and the reader all legit.

What does a “sponsored tweet” look like?
Depending on whether or not your advertisers provides an ad copy, your tweet can look like anything. Whatever you submit will be sent over to Sponsored Tweets for approval. Other than that, it will look like a regular tweet going out through your account. The only difference is that the url is through bit.ly and instead of being posted from “web” or “tweetdeck”, it says “from Sponsored Tweets“… as it should for full disclosure.

Is anyone making Money with Sponsored Tweets?
As mentioned, in just my first couple of weeks, I’ve made an extra few hundred bucks just for a few minutes of my time approving ads, and I have a fairly small twitter following. ShoeMoney also posted about how he has earned thousands from tweeting advertiser links independently and through Sponsored Tweets.

Who else is partnered with Sponsored Tweets?
There are actually a decent amount of big name tweeters already signed on with Sponsored Tweets. I haven’t seen a way to signup online (have to call) as an Advertiser to access a full list of tweeters available, but they do have the following “featured tweeters” listed in the login area. Some of these accounts (like Kim Kardashian) have over 2 million followers.

That’s a quick summary of what Sponsored Tweets is all about, and how it’s making money and driving leads through Twitter. It’s fairly new, and always great to get into a new revenue source on the bottom floor.

Should your business embrace instant messaging?

Instant messaging in one form or another has been around since computers were first connected to a network. Today instant messaging is  a very common tool that people use for personal communication, and has moved in to corporate life to play a key role in enabling teams to work more effectively and efficiently. While that sounds almost like a marketing pitch let’s look at some of the key indicators of whether instant messaging has a place in your business. Here are a few of those key indicators in no particular order.

· If your business is organized into teams; especially geographically diverse teams.

· If you business is highly transactional and if those transactions require cross-organizational cooperation.

· Any business that is decentralized with remote workers spread over many time zones.

· For businesses utilizing offshore resources instant messaging reduces language and accent frustrations.

· Any business that requires near realtime communication between employees at any and all levels.

Of course many business owners and managers have some just concerns about allowing instant messaging in the office. Chief among those concerns is that of lost productivity to personal conversations both internal and external. Early in the popular adoption of instant messaging there were very few “private” instant messaging networks. Thankfully today there are many choices. Most choices for instant messaging are delivered through “Unified Communications” platforms. Microsoft Office Communication Server or “OCS” is one example. However many companies today simply choose a standard instant messaging network (MSN, AIM, Skype, Google Talk) and a standard user naming convention for new employees and share “buddy” lists. With this form of communication commonplace the adoption of instant messaging is exploding in the workplace without the degradation in productivity that was previously feared.

 

What are you using internally for IM?

Technorati Tags: im,unified messaging,OCS,skype,AIM,business,technology,IT,collaboration

A year later the landslide continues….

Okay, so I remember the day Google announced their Chrome browser and I was sharing an office with a bunch of web design guys who collectively groaned.  Their complaint: We don’t need ANOTHER browser!!  At the time, I thought, “Fair enough, but I can’t wait to try it.”

I like even the reason that Google birthed this project.  According to sources, Google was looking to do things with HTML 5 along with some other technologies (read: Google Wave)  that just weren’t possible in any of the current major browsers.  Bravo Google! 

Just over a year later, I have to say I am totally hooked.  Chrome is BY FAR the fastest browser I have ever used; by a landslide!  Here’s proof right after they launched.   One of my favorite things is the super clean interface.  Safari, IE, and Firefox have gone through updates this year that bring them all on par with most of the navigation features I love from Chrome, but NONE have improved their speed to match Chrome. 

This landslide victory for Chrome was primarily relegated to the PC, but now with the MAC version the landslide is complete!

Google Chrome will continue to be my browser of choice, and now with the announcement of Chrome OS, maybe there is even a Chrome netbook in my future.