There have been a lot of followup questions and posts from my post last week about how I made 15k from Twitter in a month.
Many people seem to believe that paying me $400-$5,000 for 1 tweet about something can’t possibly be worth it. I totally understand that. Actually, the first time someone paid me ANYTHING to tweet I thought it was a rip off (for them).
Hell, I thought people that were paying me up to $2 PER CLICK when I made $133,000.00 from Google AdSense in one month were TOTALLY CRAZY. But they kept coming back for more…. Then the next month I did a direct deal with a company who wanted to be the exclusive advertiser for that web property. I guess it was worth it to them because they continued on for many months after.
Want to know the really funny thing… after my post last week I got like 20 offers from sponsored tweets in the gambling and web hosting space. I guess they think 6-8 CENTS per click is a good deal =P.
But just like 5 years ago when I thought I was the one making out I am probably the dumb ass making some affiliate a ton of money converting to huge offers for pennies.
So is paying for tweets worth it?
In next month’s ShoeMoney newsletter (November ‘09) I am going to talk about an actual true life case study. Hollywood believes Twitter TOTALLY ruined one movie costing a film company $50+ MILLION. Two weeks later another movie came out where Universal Pictures invested a couple hundred thousand in positive, well timed, paid tweets through ad.ly and the movie did amazingly well (despite very bad reviews in traditional media). I have some great quotes from talking to Hollywood agents and movie studios about how Twitter is taking over their advertising budgets.
Sign up for the ShoeMoney newsletter! You won’t want to miss this amazing story.
- Comment Likes 
- Comment Dislikes
December 29, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I wonder if I had some hot female TV celebrity tweet my myspace profile to girls and tell them that I’m single if it would make me an attractive suitor online… i wonder. or is that just creepy. haha
December 21, 2009 at 6:18 pm
This is just another thing that is ruining Twitter, which is already overrun with tweets that are actually advertisements.. to be honest it is kinda tough to find a tweet that does NOT contain some ad. This will be the death of Twitter as cleaner, less cluttered sites will emerge to steal the market share.
November 7, 2009 at 8:45 pm
I didn’t even know there were paid tweets available. I learn something new every day. I just post my own tweets, and that seems to work fine for my affiliate marketing tweets.
But I can see, if you have the money, and want to get the word out about whatever product your promoting, without sitting on the computer all day. This can be very beneficial, nice article!
November 4, 2009 at 9:03 am
Being paid to Tweet? What about the lists, what impact will this have on paid tweets?
November 3, 2009 at 5:45 pm
If I get more than what I pay for, without me doing anything, then it’s worth the “tweet”
Network Marketing
November 3, 2009 at 8:13 am
I’m going to buy a twitt on your account soon, i think it’s a very good idea.
November 2, 2009 at 11:10 pm
It depends on what you’re selling. It’s worth it if you can arbitrage a positive ROI.
November 2, 2009 at 11:24 pm
umm arbitrage by definition is the profit from a market imbalance so you cant arbitrage a negative roi.
November 2, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I think there’s now too many affilliate marketing schemes online. It seems like everyone wants piece of the online marketing pie to the point that it has now become a long deciding procedure and gamble to select the proper marketing channels to use online.
November 2, 2009 at 8:04 am
You ask if paying for tweets is worth it but this can also be approached by asking whether not paying for tweets is worthwhile. Tweets aren’t like newspaper ads or broadcast ads which cost money – tweets are free inherently.
October 31, 2009 at 8:16 am
Can’t wait for that newsletter, want to learn about what happened.
October 30, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Amazing! Looking forward to reading the Hollywood case studies.
October 30, 2009 at 12:43 pm
$0,06 – $0,08 CPC is a really pretty good deal, but I don’t know if I would spend $400 on a tweet.
October 30, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I would never pay for Tweets, I already have 11,000+ followers myself
October 30, 2009 at 5:39 am
I think it is fascinating that people pay for tweets – I would love to understand it better to know how to do it myself!!
October 30, 2009 at 5:37 am
I started using twitter to promote my blog in your SMX Series. I have been posting links of only my blog right now (no advertising)… and the traffic has grown manifold within the first 48 hours. So IMHO… paying for tweets helps the advertisers very much. Twitter has sidelined Digg in the market.
October 29, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Thanks for the continued great info Shoe! Although I get way less per ad than you, I’ve already had 5 paid tweets through my bball twitter account after signing up. Easy money for the time!
October 29, 2009 at 8:38 am
humm for a newbie like me this post is very interesting…just wondering how that you do that…but at least i know there’s a chance for me to be like u shoe..
October 28, 2009 at 11:30 am
I’m not good in sponsored tweets..
I’ve yet get any offer.
October 28, 2009 at 10:25 am
hm…
Until now, I didn’t have big result with twitter. But its just starter , need a lot work
October 28, 2009 at 8:48 am
I just do not know how to count the numbers. There are just too many zeros involved. Anyway, one thing always hold true. Twitter is a goldmine.
October 28, 2009 at 4:52 am
If you are getting a good ROR then its a good idea.
October 28, 2009 at 3:17 am
I think the way twitter is getting popular and more and more people are coming in, its worth paying 5-10 cents per clicks. paid to tweet is pretty new concept so we must test it repeatedly to find the ROI.
October 27, 2009 at 8:45 pm
wow, i think you have a big opportunity that not ordinary man would have…
October 27, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I didn’t know that people and company pay per click… sorry per tweet.
Something to watch out.
Franck
October 27, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I am not sure I would trust any Izea property like Sponored Tweets as an advertiser or publisher. They jacked me out of almost $1K through Social Spark.
It’s possible that paying for tweets may be worth it, but you have to deal with companies and people that have proven trustworthy.
October 27, 2009 at 9:38 am
So far I don’t see Twitter as being a good way to monetize traffic
October 27, 2009 at 6:56 am
WoW..WoW…another WoW
October 27, 2009 at 6:08 am
I would imagine the people buying the tweets have some good analytics in place and can therefore measure accurately their ROI.
In this day and age there is no excuse for not being able to measure your net profit accurately through a system!
So it should be quite simple, just like when using adwords people will decide what they should be paying to still make the money.
I guess it is much harder to measure the impact on a Hollywood blockbuster cf. a website but one thing that did strike me was the concept of trust. How many turkeys will we be forced to sit through before we realise we can’t trust twitter for movie reviews?!
I would think that genuinely good movies would do well on Twitter naturally?
October 26, 2009 at 11:51 pm
First of all dude, you’re a fu*king pimp to get $5k for a damn tweet. So nice you have to say it twice….F*CKING PIMP.
Enough with the grovelling though…Twitter is definitely just like MySpace bulletins used to be. Users with high volume “friend” accounts got paid enormous sums of money to post bulletins for an advertiser. Now they cracked down on that of course but its the same logic.
I think is awesome to pay for target traffic, Twitter is nothing special except a good way to get concise info in an easy to consume 140 character commercial…I mean message…
I am sure that Twitter may end up taking the advertising into there own hands and have there own ad serving ability between your tweets….just thinking out loud.
Thanks for the motivation Shoe! I want to make $5k a tweet…yesterday
October 26, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Hmmm, that is quite interesting. I hadn’t even thought of paying for tweets. I suppose it makes sense though really. Find someone that has a nice big list of ‘followers’ that is relevant to your offer. I would think that some stats on their tweets would be useful. i.e. tweet frequency, ctr, etc. This would help to better determine the potential value of your investment. Much of this data should be readily available, perhaps you ask?
Cheers!
JeromyS
October 26, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Interesting…
I don’t go after much social media because I feel the people who use it are somewhat “ad blind” But I suppose if you respect the source of the ad you’re exposed to it could actually carry some weight. I mean if I thought you might actually play poker at a particular site I would sign up. (cause I know you have deep pockets and I would like some of your monies) LOL
It does sound like an easy way to ruin your good name though, I would suspect you would have to be very careful what, and for whom you promote.
October 26, 2009 at 9:44 pm
If they want to pay you then why the hell not do it. Where can you reach 70,000+ for your website or product that will cost you little money to advertise. Greg Ellison
October 26, 2009 at 8:35 pm
well. i think this is insane when people didn’t know who shoe is … i though you can have $125 per tweet just like john chow have
October 26, 2009 at 8:17 pm
If they get targeted traffic as a result of the tweet then it is worth it.
October 26, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I think one of the greatest things to come from social networking is the ability to recommend. I think paying for tweets compromises that benefit and has the potential to undermine social networking as a whole.
Do you want your friends making recommendations or advertisements?
October 26, 2009 at 5:30 pm
The idea of movies being made or broken on twitter is amazing to me. Look forward to the full story with interest.
October 26, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Yes your logic is quite clear when you compare this with your adsense cheque.
Here people see direct impact on their traffic and some how on conversion as well when you tweet with their URL.
Your 74K + followers are the reason of this. In fact cost of reaching directly to the people and one person come (5000/74000 = 0.067567568) only less than 7 cents.
So this is quite possible Jeremy plus your credibility is also a vital point.
October 26, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Yes it is – I think. If you have like 50K of followers, there’s a good chance that 30K of them will click the link. Let’s say only 1/30 of them purchase the product, the net income is already impressive.
But at the very first you must have a good reputation and prestige.
October 26, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Exactly thats what I am trying to say here in my comment …
One vote from me to you.
October 26, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I can’t belive this
I simply can’t understand what’s the big deal with Twitter … (were can you pay for twitts ?)
Regards and thanks
October 26, 2009 at 12:10 pm
for example you can use ad.ly oder sponsoredtweets.com to buy tweets
October 26, 2009 at 11:55 am
I’m more of a publisher and not that much a advertiser but for me it was clear that each click can convert into like 5$ or more depending on the niche. So I think it’s just fair if the advertisers get paid 2$ because with out them the advertiser would loose or not make any money at all.
October 26, 2009 at 11:53 am
I’ve been digging into twitter CTR and conversion rates with a few accounts that have over 10,000 followers and I must say they are impressive.
Although you are a personable celebrity, you will achieve higher results than other marketers trying to imitate what you’ve accomplished.