The most popular form of making money online is by monetizing your web presence. Hence the reason Google is doing so well. The most popular website in the world gives away free applications, free space, free email, free everything practically, yet somehow they make tons of money! How do they do it? Advertising! Long story short... because of their high volume of traffic, advertisers pay Google to get noticed on their site. Google developed two systems: one for advertisers (Adwords) and one for publishers (Adsense). Adwords allows advertisers to buy keywords that when searched on Google places their link higher or in a more prime position for users to click on. Adsense allows publishers to place advertisements from advertisers on the publisher's page. Any time an advertisement is clicked, the publisher gets paid by the advertiser.
What does this have to do with making money on Twitter? Well, as a twitterer :), you are a publisher of information. You broadcast information to a targeted group of followers. The same method that applies for Adsense could be applied to your twitter profile.
Many people have said, "Don't do it! You'll lose your followers! You'll be deemed as a spammmer!" Are they right? In a sense, yes! But if you follow my directions, I can show you how making money with Twitter from advertising can be done properly.
Like anything you do, you have a unique style. For instance, I am an Entrepreneur, with a real estate license who loves technology, UFC, anything Google, and so on. Therefore my style, is hanging out, making connections, talking about real estate news, grabbing the next gadget, etc. I'm not about to talk about something that I have no clue about or is not in my character or style. So why would I do that in my twitter profile. I remain consistent and talk about things I know and love and that's the way your advertising should be. When you select an advertiser, find an ad that shows off the things you know and love. For me, it will be real estate or UFC or Google or technology related. That way, even though you are publishing an ad, it looks like you are just talking about stuff you always talk about.
Okay, I know what you are thinking... "Where do I find the advertisers?" Here are a few that I can recommend:
I'm sure most of you have heard of
Be-A-Magpie.com. They have done a lot of the work for you. They found the advertisers! The advertisers then decide how they want to pay: Per Click, Per View, Per Sale, etc. All you have to do is sign up, (give them your twitter account) ,select the ads you would like posted and ads will be posted in your name. Here is where I mentioned "your style" comes in to play. Make sure the ads you select are ads you would normally talk about. I tend to stay away from the ads that involve a sales pitch like: "Come take a look at our $99 phones! www.somerandomphonelink.com" That is a surefire ad and you will definitely lose followers with that. Some advertisers got smart and put normal talk into the ads like: "I just played around with Gmail's new 'insert picture' feature! It's awesome! www.somerandomgmailblog.com." These ads sound like me and they are things I normally talk about. You have some control over when they push your ads and there are some other neat features as well.
Another popular site for making money with twitter advertising is
Twittad.com. Again, these guys have done the work for you. They found the advertisers! All you have to do is sign up. Except this time, they aren't posting links on your twitter profile. These guys replace your profile background picture and use the whole background as an ad. The advertisers set an amount to be paid and the length of the duration your background needs changed. This site is a little harder to find advertisers that will post pics that fit your style. Occasionally they do! I tend to stick away from the longer duration ads (1 month). The shorter the better. This site also has one more unique function. They allow you to post your profile background for sale on the site for an amount of time and money that you set and then advertisers can buy your background.
The last one I will talk about is
HootSuite.com. While being your one-stop-shop for Twitter, HootSuite takes it a bit further by shrinking any links you install in your posts. By shrinking these links, HootSuite, creates a brand new webpage. On the new webpage are two things: 1) The original site you had HootSuite shrink the link for. and 2) A HootSuite Banner across the top of the page with all your information and a tiny place for you to insert a Google Adsense ad. Essentially any page you want to forward to your friends can now have one of your Adsense ads on it.
UPDATE: I just ran into something very special today (4/21/09). I found a company that pays by the number of clicks a link gets in your post! Also known as "pay per click," this is a very fast and sure fire way of how to make money with Twitter.
RevTwt.com has a very easy and simple slogan: "Earn money from your tweets!" After all, isn't that why you are here, reading this very article? Make sure you check them out!
These are only a few of the more popular advertising companies that use Twitter. There are many more available. Don't be afraid to mix and match. I always use as many as possible. The more you use the more likely you will get paid. Remember what I said though! Be true to your style and you will be fine!
Please feel free to comment or ask any questions. I usually respond right away. Stay tuned for my next post on how to make money with Twitter.
See ya!
