Unless you are living in a cave, you already know that there are Twitter users making money online with their Tweets. With companies like Ad.ly and Sponsored Tweets, you can make money by tweeting advertisements. The issue most Twitter users run into is looking like spam to their followers, so many people forgo making money on their Twitter account because they are afraid they might put off their followers.
As an internet marketer, I am always looking for ways to monetize my online activities…but…I really hate spam. Since my dislike hatred for spam runs through my veins with an extreme fire, I vowed to myself that I would never take that route in my online ventures. So here is the issue…how do you make money with your tweets and not look like a spammer just trying to make a buck online?
2 Tools At Your Disposal
Each of the Twitter advertising companies provide you with two tools that greatly decrease spam on your Twitter account.
- The Ability To Deny Offers
- The Ability To Edit The Tweets
If you are not using both of these tools, you are going to look like spam to your followers as you blast out Tweets without giving them any real thought. As you get offers to advertise on your Twitter account for a fee, you need to ask yourself 2 simple questions.
- Is this offer relevant to my followers?
- How can I word this to make it a valuable Tweet on my timeline?
If the offer is completely unrelated to your Twitter following, you need to deny the offer and wait for an offer that will actually benefit those people who chose to follow your 140 character blasts. If the offer is relevant to your targeted audience, you need to think about creative ways to word the Tweet so you are bringing relevant information to your followers that will benefit them in completing some task.
Case Study MTBby198 – Sponsored Tweets
Instead of trying to explain this step by step, I will give you an example that worked on my timeline. Keep in mind, this was on my MTBby198 Twitter account and not my robbsutton account that is filled with bloggers and Internet marketers. This is proof that you can make sponsored tweets work if you put a little bit of effort in it in niches outside of the internet marketing world.
I received an email that I had an offer waiting for approval. I signed into Sponsored Tweets and looked at the offer.
This particular offer came from Edge Eyewear – Sun Glasses & Safety Glasses. At first glance, you wouldn’t think this offer would have any relevance to my cycling audience, but – as luck would have it – I had just published an article on how riders can save a lot of money on riding glasses by purchasing safety glasses from their local hardware store.
The provided Tweet (don’t even remember what it was now) was completely irrelevant to my audience and it sounded like a blatant attempt at clicks. I reworded the sponsored tweet to this 140 character or less line:
A cheaper alternative for riding glasses – brought to you by http://bit.ly/c6XaB
What was the result? After the Tweet was approved and hit my timeline, there were over 100 click thoroughs and several retweets. I even received several @replies thanking me for the link and the idea on using safety glasses as riding optics. Yes…everyone was aware this was an advertisement by the “brought to you by”, but they didn’t care. Why didn’t they care? Because the tweet brought them a resource that was relevant to their needs as cyclists. If I would have just blasted out every offer I received or kept the advertisers original Tweet…I would have just annoyed my followers and probably lost some in the process.
The Bottom Line On Twitter Advertising
Just like any affiliate advertising, your Tweets need to be relevant to your audience. There is money to be made on Twitter, but you have to be careful how you go about it if you want to have a valuable Twitter account for your blog or business. Those Twitter users that are completely ignoring Twitter advertising as another income stream for their business are missing out on a huge chuck of cash inflow. The “I’m better than that mentality” is laziness and lack of creativity on that users part…
My challenge to you is to test out companies like Sponsored Tweets and ad.ly and see if you can not make a little bit more income by providing creative, relevant, paid Tweets to your followers. When done correctly, it can provide value to both you and your followers.
4 comments
Alright, I think you finally sold me. I’ve had the exact same issues with sponsored tweets. However, I might just have to give it a try now. I’ll probably sign up this weekend and see how it goes.
It is worth testing for sure. You never really know how something will perform until you try it out.
Keep it relevant to your followers and without spammy language and you should be good to go!
I’ve added myself as a user of sponsored tweets, but of course you need to hit the 200 follower link. I have read that there are good ways of increasing the cost per tweet based on your ratio of following versus followers.
Like you said I think it is a great idea to personalize the tweets and fit it into your personal timeline. I had never thought of starting up a seperate account from my blogging account.
I like it.
Thanks Rob
Sure thing!
The best converting advertising is always the most relevant to your audience that engages with their wants and needs. As long as you remember that in the process…it’s all good.