Written By Nicholas Cardot67 Comments
How to Make Big Money on Sponsored Tweets
Dynamite Profits: Profit From Your Passions
Last week, I posted an article called Make Extra Cash With Your Twitter Account.
That was the article where I introduced you to a cool program called Sponsored Tweets. This program is an ad network that allows you to get paid for sending out tweets for advertisers.
When I posted last week about this program, I had several people ask me what they needed to do in order to get people to sponsor them. They wanted to know what had to be done to actually start making money on the program.
Today, I’ll answer those questions and give you exactly what you need to know to start breaking the bank with your Twitter account.
Followers
One of the first things that advertisers look at is the number of followers that you have so get out there and build some more followers on your account.
Is your spam radar going off right now? It should be. If you’re building followers for the sole purpose of capitalizing on them, then that is just wrong. You are a spammer.
You should be building followers to connect with people. The added revenue is a great bonus and I certainly want followers for that reason…but not only for that reason.
I’m not looking for a way to take advantage of people. I’m looking for a way to make extra money while at the same time providing great value to my readers and followers. It’s kind of a balancing act.
Clicks
The next thing that potential advertisers want to know is how many clicks they are going to get for their money.
Sponsored tweets actually recommends that we try to average our bid to around $.50 per click but I personally think that it’s good business to try to give customers more value than they spend on us. My average price per click for my account is around $.18 per click. It’s about one-third of the recommended price.
Because I offer such a great value, I’m pumped up with confidence when I ask people to sponsor my tweets. If you want to get in my twitter stream, just click here and hire me to tweet out a link for you.
Influence
Influence is the measure of activities that people are willing to do on your recommendation. When you post a call to action, those who respond and do what you ask them to do are a reflection of your influence.
While advertisers can’t measure this directly when they’re just glancing at your listing, many advertisers analyze how many conversions their campaigns produce. They may be interested in more than just clicks but in actual purchases.
If you can deliver with a powerful influence then you’ll probably see them come running back to you with more offers.
Make Money, Have Fun, Don’t Spam
In another previous article, I received an awesome comment expressing adamant opposition to Sponsored Tweets. Lindsay from BSC Design had this to say about the program:
I just have to say.. i freaking HATE sponsored tweets! Twitter would be a world better without these things and I would personally never promote something like that.
Now I hope that I’m not misrepresenting her, but I’m guessing that she hates the program because of the spam factor. There are a lot of people who are so hungry to make an extra couple of dollars that they are taking on every opportunity they see and in turn they are diluting their twitter stream with massive amounts of meaningless spam. Don’t be that person.
Be real with your followers. Post things that interest you. Interact with your friends. And accept a few sponsored tweets along the way. Don’t turn yourself into a giant spammer that people hate to interact with.
Group Reflection
Are you a member of Sponsored Tweets? How has it worked out for you so far? How much are you charging for your tweets? What is your cost per click? How many followers do you have and how many clicks do you get on an average tweet?
WHAT!? You’re not a member of sponsored tweets? Click Here to join in on the fun.
Nicholas Cardot
Nick uses his blog Site Sketch 101 to express his passion for helping bloggers and webmasters connect with real people through brilliant designs, unique content, and genuine creativity. Nicholas Cardot has 187 post(s) at Site Sketch 101
67 Comments
We'd love to hear yours!
Leave a Reply
Here's your chance to speak.
- Comment Leaderboard
Ron Leyba
Olusegun Adedokun
Derek Jensen
Mikkel 'DaneBlogger' Juhl
Kok Siong Chen
gautam hans
Casey Brazeal (North and Clark) said:
I have yet to use one of these. I think your right about the idea of a fine line.
I still really don’t know exactly what to do with my twitter presence to promote myself, much less other people products.
My Latest Blog Post: Guest Post Round Up
Nicholas Cardot said:
Casey Brazeal (North and Clark) –> I like to use twitter to chat with people and to connect with people across our common interests. I’m sure to only post a sponsored tweet about once per day or less which ends up being about 1 out of every 20 of my tweets.
ZXT said:
Nick I’m still waiting for you to follow me on Twitter. At the moment I only got 162 followers and following 206 people including you and about a dozen peps here at SS101.
My Latest Blog Post: Manny Pacquiao Demolished Miguel Cotto
Chad said:
Interesting concept, but I have to agree that it does seem like a fine line. But the beauty of Twitter is how easy it is to gain/lose followers. Walk the line properly and you’ll do fine.
I’m still new to the game and don’t have a lot of followers, but I tend to average about 12-20 clicks per link I Tweet.
It’s easy to see how a couple of sponsored Tweets could cover the cost of small stuff, like web hosting.
Food for thought. Thanks Nick.
My Latest Blog Post: The Importance of Music
Nicholas Cardot said:
Chad –> I think if you spend a lot of time focusing on actually bringing value to your followers then they won’t mind a sponsored tweet every now and then.
Chad said:
Agreed. I signed up (through your link), may as well give it a go. Thanks for the info.
My Latest Blog Post: My Secret to Beating the Flu
chandan said:
Thank you for posting article on sponsored tweets. I have got one nice mail from sponsored tweets that they will pay $1000 for highest sender twitter.
My Latest Blog Post: Promote your work at home business by article marketing
Nicholas Cardot said:
chandan –> I saw that as well but I have a feeling that there are probably a lot of people out there sending more referrals than we can come up with so I haven’t really been participating in that as much as I probably could.
chandan said:
But I am not able to send much referral on sponsored tweets. I think I have to write on post on sponsored tweets.
Nicholas Cardot said:
chandan –> That’s not a big deal. Sponsored tweets pays very little for their referral program. Very little. I’m rather disappointed actually. But I don’t mind referring people because I enjoy using the program and I figure that others will enjoy using it as well.
Dana @ Online Knowledge said:
I do not come in to this game yet. But, surely will try these tips if i already use it.
My Latest Blog Post: Atahualpa 3.4.4 Configuration
chandan said:
Sponsored tweets is playing really big game. Even John cow also promoting sponsored tweets on his blog.
My Latest Blog Post: Promote your work at home business by article marketing [Digg]
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews said:
John Chow also wrote an interesting article on how to do well on sponsored tweets. His tips were alittle less practical though since most of us cannot claim eCelebrity status
Klout.com is awesome though. If you don’t use it check it out. I think it also helps advertisers to pick your account. (your klout shows up as 0 to marketers on sponsored tweets if you aren’t registered)
My Latest Blog Post: Where Are Your Readers’ Eyes Going?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews –> That’s a great point. I should have mentioned that in the article. Thanks for bringing it up.
Nicholas Cardot said:
chandan –> John Chow charges over $100 per tweet. That’s pretty impressive.
ZXT said:
$100 per Tweet? I’m curious how many clicks does that Tweet gets. A hundred? 500?
My Latest Blog Post: Manny Pacquiao Demolished Miguel Cotto
Nicholas Cardot said:
Dana @ Online Knowledge –> It’s worth checking out, especially as you continue to grow your following on Twitter.
Tony said:
Sponsored tweets? Do we really want to be exposed to even more advertising?
My Latest Blog Post: Steve Jobs, “CEO of the Decade”, Talks About His Next Project
Nicholas Cardot said:
Tony –> Ha ha. I understand that sentiment. But I also believe that people want to be rewarded for building their online presences.
David | ilcantone.com said:
Hi Nick,
I’ve signed two weeks ago and I don’t have any offer yet. I was curious to know the reason and started to look for an answer. And guees what I found: My stats (my stream) on sponsored tweets (ST)is showing my info imperfectly.
MY GRADE & RANK
*According to ST: my grade is 27.7
*According to twitter grader, original source of the info: my grade is 99.3 and my ranking is 36,903 out of 5,572,968.
->I’ve just signed to Klout.com.
MY PRICE
ST suggested price->4.47
*According to ST: $2
*According to me: $1 I only charge $1, 4 times less than suggested price.
MY ratio 1.007
My followers: for now: 3,977
———-
What can I do? They are showing wrong stats. Why did they double the price I set?
I’m going to send a mail to clarify it.
My Latest Blog Post: ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE: How to Turn $5 Into $650 in 2 Hours
David | ilcantone.com said:
I answer to my previous question: It does seem that the advertiser’s cost is double your asking price. So, you Nick are charging 1.5 but ST doubled it to $3.
Sorry for the extra comment.
My Latest Blog Post: ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE: How to Turn $5 Into $650 in 2 Hours
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews said:
Comment spamming it up huh Dave?
I didn’t know ST doubled your asking price. I guess that makes some sense since they have to make a profit. Double seems a little much, but at least it’s easy to calculate.
I wonder if the people charging $500+ per tweet cost double that to get Tweeted. Many that’s one expensive tweet!
My Latest Blog Post: Where Are Your Readers’ Eyes Going?
David | ilcantone.com said:
hehehe
comment spamming, good one.
If you want my opinion: I really don’t think any advertisers is paying $500, or in this case $1000, for just a tweet. I charge $1+$1 (st benefits)= $2 and I have 4000 followers. So, Guy Kawasaky with 189,343 followers (WOW :0) should charge to be competitive= $90 per tweet. Well, it’s not bad $90 per tweet.
My Latest Blog Post: ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE: How to Turn $5 Into $650 in 2 Hours
Nicholas Cardot said:
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews –> That’s true. I wonder if those with celebrity status have a different markup than the rest of us.
Nicholas Cardot said:
David | ilcantone.com –> Yeah. Sponsored Tweets takes a bit of a commission on it.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com said:
I have close to 3000 followers so the ST suggested price is a tad over $3.00. I have my price set at $0.58 and am getting offers every day.
As a general rule, keep your numbers low until you get more offers than you expect. Then slowly raise your price and continue to monitor.
My Latest Blog Post: A blogger’s three month dilemma: burnout or refuel?
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews said:
Wow! Offers everyday? I don’t think I would want to do a sponsored tweet daily.
For me about 1 every other day or every third day is perfect. I can’t wait for my account to be 120 days old! Only another 2-3 weeks I think.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com said:
I don’t accept every offer. I do, however, try to do one every day or two to see how people react to them. I try to choose offers that closely match what my blogs are about.
So far, no one has raised any concerns about those tweets.
My Latest Blog Post: A blogger’s three month dilemma: burnout or refuel?
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews said:
With nearly 3000 followers, Once a day or every other day seems pretty reasonable to me. Not all of your followers are on all the time, so I’m sure many of them never even see your sponsored tweets.
Do you have any idea what your CTR is? (just for personal reference)
My Latest Blog Post: Where Are Your Readers’ Eyes Going?
Gabe | freebloghelp.com said:
Nothing great. Lowest CPC is 0.25, highest is 1.16.
My Latest Blog Post: A blogger’s three month dilemma: burnout or refuel?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Gabe | freebloghelp.com –> That’s exactly what you should do. By choosing the offers related to your blog, you provide value to your followers and you increase the chances of your advertiser’s ad being responded to positively.
David | ilcantone.com said:
Are you serious. Every day. Ok, I will try your strategy, I will low my price even lower and then, when I get some offers I will start to climb my price
.
By the way, what are your KeyWords, and how did you fill your settings options?
Thanks for sharing.
My Latest Blog Post: ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE: How to Turn $5 Into $650 in 2 Hours
Nicholas Cardot said:
Gabe | freebloghelp.com –> That’s exactly right. Advertisers, like everyone else, are looking for good deals. You lower the price and offer people a good deal and you’ll get a lot more offers.
Nicholas Cardot said:
David | ilcantone.com –> I think that I’ve figured out that Sponsored Tweets takes a 50% cut which is why the price is double what you are asking for. I’m not sure why you’re not getting any at that price. I guess that you just have to wait for a good offer to come by and keep working to increase your followers. I’m currently growing my follower count at a pace of about 75 followers per day.
David | ilcantone.com said:
By they way, would you mind to share with us how did you fill your settings and what are your weywords, maybe you’ve done something different and may help to optimize our settings too.
Thanks Nicholas.
Regards
My Latest Blog Post: ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE: How to Turn $5 Into $650 in 2 Hours
Nicholas Cardot said:
David | ilcantone.com –>
Ad Unit Type: Either
My Category: Marketing
Keywords: Blogging, Design, Domains, Hosting
My Content Rating: Everyone
If My Tweets Under Perform…: Checked
Charge Per Tweet: $1.50
ileane said:
This is interesting and I’m glad you took the time to explain the business model. I’m not sure if I would want to earn money this way, but it’s good to know how it’s done.
Keep up the good work Nick.
Thanks.
My Latest Blog Post: Posterous – Lifestreaming or Not?
Nicholas Cardot said:
ileane –> Thanks. Certainly this style is not for everyone.
Jay Medina said:
Twitter is everywhere, Therefore Twitter has do deal with gaining more profit. Without it it can be hard for me.
My Latest Blog Post: Cause a Stampede of Prospects With Three Magic Words, Part 3
John Samuel said:
Right now I am not planning to jump into this.
My Latest Blog Post: How to Spell Check the Subject of a Mail or Title of a Post?
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews said:
I think the concept of sponsored tweets is just fine. Most advertisers won’t pay spam bots to tweet anyway because they have no influance.
The people Lindsey dislikes are the affiliate marketer spammer. They are responsible for the vast majority of the spam on twitter.
It is all just part of the game though. Any network that is powerful will have marketers.
Just report the people spamming affiliate ads as spammers and move on.
I believe as long as you are providing useful interesting tweets, your followers won’t mind a sponsored tweet here or there.
My Latest Blog Post: Where Are Your Readers’ Eyes Going?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews –> You’re right. I can’t imagine an advertiser to want a spammer to send out their message. I like the concept because I feel that with my current level of engagement with my followers, I’m able to offer real value to advertisers while at the same time not spamming my followers. I believe that I have a great balance going.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com said:
There are a lot of problems with Twitter. As I wrote earlier this week (forget where), as long as we accept it for what it is, all we have to do is play within the etiquette rules of this game.
If you treat Twitter as an extension of your or your blog, then you would use it just as you would any other medium. However, you can always experiment with another Twitter account that’s not “tied” to what you do every day.
My Latest Blog Post: A blogger’s three month dilemma: burnout or refuel?
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews said:
I’m using two twitter accounts as well to do some tests and what not. I’m pretty happy with the results I’ve seen so far.
What do you all think about how Guy Kawasaki uses two account, one for tweeting and one for replies in order to keep his main account clear? It seems practical, but I wonder if that makes him come across as engaging if you didn’t know he used two accounts?
My Latest Blog Post: Where Are Your Readers’ Eyes Going?
Gabe | freebloghelp.com said:
I have several Twitter accounts but I use my “personal” one for my blogs. Most of my friends and I connect on FB and so not my Twitter followers.
My Latest Blog Post: A blogger’s three month dilemma: burnout or refuel?
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews said:
I’m with you about using facebook to connect with personal friends. I think there is a little too much noise on Twitter. Facebook, even when you have a ton of friends, is a little easier to follow I think.
I also think Facebook doesn’t have a tendency to keep you link chasing as bad. Rarely do I end up jumping page to page for hours while on Facebook… Twitter… that’s another story.
I still think there is value in having a second account to reply to responses once you get a ton of personal replies. I think initially while building your account, responding from your main account is probably more appealing.
Nick, what are your thoughts?
My Latest Blog Post: Where Are Your Readers’ Eyes Going?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Gabe | freebloghelp.com –> I like the idea of having only one account but that is because I’m trying to brand myself first and my blog second. I want all of my online activities to reflect me so I have no need for different accounts for each blog.
Nicholas Cardot said:
Blake @ Props Blog Reviews –> I just use one account for both of those as I agree that people who only follow one account would find you engaging without providing value or providing value without engaging.
Nicholas Cardot said:
Gabe | freebloghelp.com –> That’s a unique idea. Creating a separate account to experiment with is a creative concept.
Ron Boracay said:
Never tried sponsored tweets, but I might try it out soon when I reach certain numbers of followers. As of this moment, I am still on the process of growing my followers.
Anyway, thanks for the details Nick, now I have basic knowledge how to earn money while tweeting (which is I am in love of).
My Latest Blog Post: Two Seasons Boracay
Nicholas Cardot said:
Ron Boracay –> How many followers do you have right now?
jan geronimo said:
So the trick with Sponsored Tweets is to set the your price lower than the ST valuation? I’ve registered so that a friend would have a chance of topping its top referrer contest. Uh oh, that’s why, I’m not getting any offers at all. It’s almost week since I registered.
My Latest Blog Post: Read My Lips: Twitter Lists Are Meant to be Exclusionary
Nicholas Cardot said:
jan geronimo –> Yeah. It’s an open market so if others are marking their prices way below the suggested price then they are going to get hired more than you. We just have to be competitive if we want to get some of the action there.
Chris said:
If I’m not mistake, Sponsored Tweets is part of the IZEA network which also includes Pay Per Post and Social Spark. I joined Sponsored Tweets about two months ago and so far have only been given two opportunities for a whopping $.40. My take on ST…It’s not worth the time or aggravation. There is a much better program out there called RevTwt. I’ve been making about $5-$10 per month with them, which isn’t bad for tweeting just three ads a day. The only thing they require to join is that you have more than 50 followers. Currently, I have about 1225.
My Latest Blog Post: Free Web Hosting Is The Real Deal
Nicholas Cardot said:
Chris –> I just signed up and browsed through the RevTWT networks ads and all I could find was blatant spam. Let me give you an example: http://www.wallstreetgazettenews.com/
At first glance it looks really legitimate. It actually looks like it’s from a website of a legitimate newspaper. Then you notice that the web address doesn’t match the title of the page. You notice that the weather in the sidebar doesn’t update or change. There are no dates anywhere on the page to be found so that page could be six years old or six days old. Comments are closed and the comments that are there are only positive reinforcements of the program. So either all the comments are fabricated (without actual dates, by the way) or they refuse to let through the plethora of negative reviews that got left on there. It seems pretty bogus.
Then I looked through your twitter stream and noticed that you are linking to people like that. You are blantantly sending your followers to spam websites so that you can make $30 per month. In fact, I have to ask, do you try to add value at all to your readers or is it all about the money.
You all can say that I’m unkind for saying this with such brutal honesty, but I believe that we can use programs like Sponsored Tweets to reward ourselves now and then without spamming our followers.
Check out my twitter stream. You’ll find that I chat with people. I drop links related to my online presence: blog tips. And about every day or two I might post a sponsored tweet. I post about one link out of 20 or so of my tweets as a sponsored one. That’s not spam. That’s well within online etiquette.
But you are posting almost exclusively just rubbish in hopes of making some extra cash from your human resources, aka your followers.
My followers aren’t resources. Their friends and I value them.
Vinish said:
I will join soon, but i have very low number of twitter followers. Thanks for sharing the information.
My Latest Blog Post: Difference Between Cash and Trade Discount
Nicholas Cardot said:
Vinish –> How many followers do you have right now?
nilantha said:
i think join with your program, but i don’t understood program procedure.
Jim Clary said:
I have just started using sponsored tweets and I have been fairly happy with it. I will agree that anything can be overdone, and it would result in just spamming your list if it was done everyday.
They have not sent me too many requests, but you can always turn them down if they send too many.
My Latest Blog Post: Top 5 Benefits Of Hosting Your Blog On Your Domain Name
ZXT said:
Nick how are you doing so far with ST? $1 a day? Looks like ST is your 2nd best income aside from adsense.
My Latest Blog Post: Manny Pacquiao Demolished Miguel Cotto
How To Make Big Money On Sponsored Tweets | Blog Mixer said:
[...] Site Sketch 101 Presents How To Make Big Money On Sponsored Tweets [...]
Don Gilbert said:
I followed your link, and it said that Site Sketch no longer has an account for sponsored tweets – did you close it? Why? Would you no longer recommend this service?
My Latest Blog Post: Top 10 Tips to Dominate Your Niche for SEO
Don Gilbert said:
It seems actually that you do have an account – I clicked the link that appeared in my comment, and it took me right over there and I was able to see your account.
So, I guess this is to just report a broken link. Your “Click Here’s” that are in the article and link to http://bit.ly/2zqIuQ need to be updated.
Thanks
My Latest Blog Post: Top 10 Tips to Dominate Your Niche for SEO
Nicholas Cardot said:
Don Gilbert » That’s strage. I just checked both of those links and both are them are working for me. I’m not sure what’s happening on there.
Don Gilbert said:
Hmm – I rechecked – and got a fail again.
Check out the screenshot here:
http://blog.ifbdesign.com/ss-st-error.png
That’s what I got when I clicked the bit.ly link.
My Latest Blog Post: Top 10 Tips to Dominate Your Niche for SEO
Nicholas Cardot said:
Don Gilbert » Okay, I was able to figure out what was going on and everything should work now. Thanks for helping me see that.
Ed said:
Confused…Does SponsoredTweets advertise on your site? You are most likely making money off them advertising on your site than you using the site for a couple bucks…Yes or No…Just curious…