Who doesn’t use social media these days? I don’t know about you but I’ve been using Twitter and Facebook for years now. I’ve started to use Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest recently as well.
Last week I shared the dirty little secret about how bloggers make money. Today I have another secret to share with you: ordinary people can make money on social media.
That’s right. Even if you are just a casual participant, you can make money using social media.
I shared in a previous post about how I made hundreds of dollars on social media. I made all of this on my personal account by posting tweets that advertisers paid me to publish. Sure, $3 isn’t that much, but over time it adds up.
I did this through an old ad network called Sponsored Tweets. Sponsored Tweets was (and technically still is) run by IZEA. But IZEA now has a new ad network that allows you to make money on all your social media accounts.
How does it work?
First, you need to sign up:
Once you are logged in, you can add additional social media accounts. You can add all the following accounts:
- Google+
- Blog
- Flickr
- Foursquare
- Tumblr
- WordPress
- YouTube
So, what happens once you have your networks connected? You’ll want to add some info about yourself, as well as set your direct offer price. This will make it easier to be found by advertisers.
For example, here is what I added for my Twitter account (click for larger pictures):
On the next tab I shared some information about my target audience. Finally, I set my asking price for direct offers. I set mine relatively high:
And that’s all there is to it! Advertisers will make you offers and you can either accept or reject. If you don’t get offers, consider lowering your rate.
There are also ‘Bids’ where advertisers will invite you to bid on certain advertising campaigns:
Since I’m a runner – or at least try to be a runner – let’s take a look at the Nike twitter status update campaign. Here’s the detail page:
You can bid anywhere from $1 all the way up to $146.34. You can also put an optional 140 character or less pitch as to why you should be chosen. There is also additional detail on this page about the deal, as well as the link that would be included in your tweet.
Bidding gives you an opportunity to set your own price and get your name in the ring.
To get started making money on social media sign up for IZEA (it’s Free – and you can make money!).
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Photo by John Liu
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Thanks for the info, DC! I signed up for IZEA, although I clicked on the link near the top of the page not the one in the giveaway, oops!
Thanks for this tip, I must try this one. I’m really engaged in social media, especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, in fact, I just started my online business in Facebook and I met my supplier from Instagram.
colormefrugal No worries, it’s the same link : ) I should clarify that in the RaffleCopter, though.
Clarisse @ Make Money Your Way Very cool! Yeah I would check out IZEA if I were you, who knows you could make a few hundred (or thousand) this year through it!
Interesting, DC! I had no idea. There’s just no shortage of learning over here at YAM. Thanks for that. :-)
David, that sounds awesome! I have never heard of bringing in some extra money this way =)
Very cool DC! I’m all for making more money and this seems like a fairly simple way to do it. Thanks for the giveaway!
Wow, that seems easy. I’ll have to check it out.
When I talk to new bloggers, doing this sort of thing is always a surprise to them. A person can only come up with so much new content for a blog….but here are other ways to make money online to supplement your actual writing!
I have never heard of this before, but sounds cool. Thanks for sharing!
Interesting…heard about it, but didn’t know how to sign up or how it worked. Thanks for sharing! Do you need a large amount of followers…I’m sure the rate changes. But they probably still want a decent amount of followers right?
You’re giving away all your online earning secrets, DC! This actually does sound like an interesting way to make a few $’s on the side. As long as you don’t abuse it and go overboard (so as not to offend your social media followers), then it seems like a solid idea. How does the the size of your social media following come into play? Does IZEA share that with the prospective advertisers?
Laurie TheFrugalFarmer Haha thanks Laurie. I try to share what I can. I’ve been interested in online income for a long time now so I know about some of these lesser-known techniques.
Holly at ClubThrifty Well I’m glad I could share something new with you! I think there is a decent amount of $ available for those active in social media.
FrugalRules Yeah you don’t really have to DO anything else, just spend a few minutes getting set up online. I do like the bidding tool as I can bid more or less depending on how much I think an advertiser will spend on a given campaign.
brokeandbeau Let me know how you like it. I think it’s a pretty easy way to make a few dollars here and there – and it adds up!
blonde_finance No problem! Hope you find it useful.
Andrew LivingRichCheaply I don’t think you need a TON of followers. If you have 10 I don’t think you will get many offers, though, haha. I have a ton of followers but they care more about engagement. If you have only a few followers but the followers are engaged I, as an advertiser, would feel compelled to ‘pick’ you for the campaign.
PFUtopia Well that’s what we’re all about here! Yes, you obvoiusly would want to keep your non-sponsored to sponsored ratio very low. Well, IZEA would share your account username so for example if it’s for a Twitter campaign and I was an advertiser and I had no idea how many followers you had and your account was private so I had no insight into how much you interact with people, I probably wouldn’t pick you.
Another great little secret. Thanks for sharing.
Raquel@Practical Cents No problem Raquel, and thanks for the kind words.
Hrm, sounds interesting. I’ll have to give it a try!
Sounds interesting. Shortened url’s from affiliate networks can be another good way to make money on social media, it does take a bit of effort though to send out enough tweets to make a real impact and there’s always the risk of things getting spammy.
debtperception Let me know what you think!
MoneyBulldog That’s not a bad way either. I like this way better, though, because it’s guaranteed money versus money per sale.
This is pretty cool. I will be signing up for it.
This is such a cool thing! Thanks for sharing!!
TheButlerJournal.com Let me know how you like it!
LaTejana @ Debt Free Tejana No problem! Hope you’re able to make some $ on it.
Another way to make money that I hadn’t heard of. That’s pretty cool! Not sure if I have enough followers though…
Great stuff here David, craziness all the different ways to make money.
I did a few sponsored tweets, while it looks good it is a lot of time for a few $
RFIndependence Really? I found sponsored tweets to be really quick. Takes literally one minute. Not sure if you did it through IZEA or not? I do all mine through IZEA.
Charles@gettingarichlife It really is crazy. Advertising has changed in recent times, though, and for the better.
DC @ Young Adult Money RFIndependence I mean if you have to look for and bid for tweets that may not accept you anyway. What is your success rate on bids? I haven’t used izea.
RFIndependence DC @ Young Adult MoneyYou don’t have to bid. I don’t use that feature currently. I set a rate and get an email when I have an offer. Takes 1 minute to review, approve, or deny. Very simple with IZEA.
RFIndependence DC @ Young Adult MoneyI’m assuming right now bids have a very high success rate as that is a brand new feature and probably not many people submitting them.. Before you could only set your rate and wait for offers. Actually I did my first bid last night. I set it pretty high, we’ll see if I get it. Bidding takes almost no time though, just set your price and hit submit.
Green Money Stream If you interact with people advertisers sometimes value that even more than follower count. I’d take 25 engaged followers versus 1,000 that aren’t engaged any day.
Holy wow, this is so informative! Thanks for opening my eyes once again on how to make money on the internet.
Awesome post DC, do you need to have a lot of followers to have this work.. It does seem like a decent way to make a few extra $$.. What is the most you’ve ever made and is it paid in $$, vouchers or otherwise :)?
mycareercrusade I don’t think you need a lot of followers. If you have 100 followers but they are all very engaged in your posts, that would be preferable to 10,000 followers that aren’t engaged. I don’t know this for a fact but if you think from an advertisers perspective it makes sense.
The bidding is a new feature so everything I’ve made so far has been from a flat rate I charge. You are paid in $.
I signed up for Izea a bit back, but haven’t really looked at it again since, nor finished setting up my profile. There were some problems getting it going in the beginning, the website kept timing out and stuff. I just tried out the bid feature, we’ll see what happens. I put in bids that were a bit lower than what I put in for regular, just to test the waters.
Pretty cool. Always looking for ways to make some monies on the side.
Ugifter Hmm interesting. I only used Sponsored Tweets in the past and it worked really well. Made a few hundred dollars for very little work. IZEA has re-launched with the additional features so I’m excited to see how it works. I know they already have some big brands (like Nike, Apple, etc.) on board.
thebrokeprof Same here. Love hearing about different ways to make side money.
DC @ Young Adult Money mycareercrusadeAgreed about the followers, what is the best way to have that engagement with followers? Maybe I am approaching it the wrong way i.e. am following people in my field but not necessarily building relationships with them, it’s tough to keep up though with a full time job..
Fantastic efforts in making side money.
Wow, interesting! What have your experiences been like using this? Any negative feedback from your followers?
CashvilleSky I”ve had very positive experiences. No negative feedback from my followers.
This is great! I like that you can choose, so it seems that you’re not locked in to a brand you don’t align with. I’m looking forward to checking it out further. Thanks!
mypenwritesredExactly! For example I didn’t bid on the Apple-related opportunities because I’m a Windows/PC guy. I did bid on the Nike running opportunity because I like Nike and I’m a runner. I really like that aspect of it.
DC @ Young Adult Money mypenwritesred I did see that you have not had much backlash from your followers. Do you keep it to a minimum or do you tweet equally personal-ish stuff with your sponsored stuff? Thanks for suffering the questions. LOL.
mypenwritesred DC @ Young Adult Money No problem, I definitely don’t mind questions! I have a VERY low ratio of sponsored tweets to ‘regular’ tweets. Less than 1% for sure, likely much lower than that even.
DC @ Young Adult Money Thanks! I’m going to give it a go and see what happens.
mypenwritesred DC @ Young Adult MoneyGood luck!
mycareercrusade DC @ Young Adult MoneyThe best way to have that engagement is to actually engage them. I’m not sure how else to explain it haha. People love when others reply to their tweets, favorite their tweets, and retweet their tweets. Like most things, you get out of Twitter and other social media what you put in.
DC @ Young Adult Money mycareercrusade Hmm yeah you’re right, do you work full time though Dave? Am finding that developing content, installing Adwords and developing an E-Book and engaging followers is tough and a real balancing act
mycareercrusade DC @ Young Adult MoneyYes, I have a full-time job in corporate America. I don’t sleep much during the week : )
DC @ Young Adult Money mycareercrusade Wow that is amazing though DC, sleep is fundamental though to being able to keep pushing.. This is purely your site right? Or your brainchild, it must take some time :)
So what if I don’t have Twitter? I mostly just use Google+ and Facebook. Will I still be able to cash in? ;)
Storygirl727 Absolutely. I listed them in the post already, but here’s the social media networks they utilize:Google+InstagramTwitterBlogFacebookFlickrFoursquareLinkedInTumblrWordPressYouTube
All right, I’ll give it a shot. I signed up and submitted to two open bids. I guess it depends how many followers I need to have to make it worthwhile for them.
I just signed up!! Thanks for sharing!!
hey DC but how does the Izea get money from it?? does it just take them from your bank acount?