Stardust Global Ventures

The hook -

Make money simply for doing what you already do – tweet! Great line, but is it so simple?

Many of you know I’ve tried several different ad campaigns to see how they work, wondering how effective they are, but also wondering how comfortable I would feel with them.

I know a couple people questioned how smart it was for me to use my account to advertise all sorts of things, and truth be told, in the beginning I was not terribly discerning. Oh, I wouldn’t have allowed everything, but there were definitely a number of things I did allow to get tweeted that weren’t overly popular with my network.

What I learned -

After about a month of using both magpie and spontwts, I learned to be more aware of what content was getting pushed through my account. For instance, while I may appreciate nice clothes, a fashionista I am not. I took a lot of flack back when I was allowing the fashion ads.

This morning I was sent an ad campaign from twittad that on the surface was fine, still I hadn’t paid attention well enough, obviously. I was shocked to log onto twitter on the web and see my sidebar had been removed and in it’s place? A HUGE full size add, right where I typically advertise myself. WOW! How did that happen?

What do you need to consider before involving yourself, and, your twitter account in an ad campaign? Below are a few thoughts I would suggest you consider before jumping in. Once you make the decision to do it, take it slow and have fun with it. Also make sure you disclose to your network what you are doing. I didn’t unless asked which I believe is a mistake in retrospect.

• 1: Know your audience (network, alliances, friends)
• 2: Don’t settle
• 3: It’s not all about the money
• 4: Listen to your people
• 5: If you’re not comfortable, end it
• 6: Read the fine print and understand it before agreeing to anything
• 7: Don’t expect to make a ton of money fast; you won’t. 
• 8: Define your goals

Now, those may seem like no brainers but they may not be quite as easy to pay attention to at first. Funny thing with ads, they’re sort of addicting. They were to me anyway. I kept watching the money add up and was all excited that I might make enough to pay my internet bill or something. I did, but at what cost?

Fortunately for me I have a great network full of a lot of people I actually call friends. They may have dropped the occasional message, suggesting I was in over my head or asking what I was doing, Dameon, but in general they watched me fuss around, changing quantity, honing the ads so they were more the type of thing my network would be interested in, like technology.

There is money to be made from ads, but if your network is small, you will not make tons. It takes time to get the right campaigns coming to you that you can then approve. Above all, keep it in perspective. You will not get rich so don’t even go there. Do expect to hear from people occasionally who are not appreciative of content being broadcast at them. Broadcast isn’t well tolerated right now.

Thanks for your patience, and please don’t message me to tell me my sidebar is replaced with ugly content. It should be remedied now.

SB