I have been blogging with Social Spark for a few years now. It definitely isn’t steady income, but last year I earned enough to buy my plane tickets to Type-A Mom Conference so I was happy with that. With Social Spark you set up your price requirements and what types of things you cover on your blog in your profile. Then advertisers send you offers to write about their products or services. You always have the right to turn them down-so don’t fear that you will be harassed if you don’t take offers.

I get a daily email from Social Spark with any leads (companies that may want to work with me) and offers (companies that want to work with me). I go into my profile and accept or reject these leads and offers. You also have the ability to renegotiate your price, though I have never done this because if you are making me an offer for an amount that is 1/4 of my minimal price I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to agree to do it for my price.

Social Spark is easy to use and it is a pretty easy way to make some extra money with your blog when you’re not partial to using cash advance apps in an emergency. If you do decide to check out Social Spark please click the banner at the top of this post, I am in a contest to see who can refer the most new bloggers to Social Spark and I would appreciate your help.

The post Make Money Blogging Using Social Spark appeared first on The Mom Maven.

A couple weeks ago I signed up with Sponsored Tweets, a new program available through Izea. The concept of Sponsored Tweets is simply… get paid to send out tweets through Twitter. Since joining, I’ve had several opportunities come through, and have already made several hundreds of dollars. Here’s a bit more on the site and how you can make money too. View Sponsored Tweets

How does Sponsored Tweets work?

Everything about Sponsored Tweets is very simple and easy to setup. You create your account, and login with your same Twitter account info (through Twitter). Once your account is created, you just need to set how much you want to be paid per tweet, and then you wait for a new opportunity to come in. When you receive a new opportunity, you just need to approve or deny the tweet. Some advertisers write what they want you to say, but many leave that up to the tweeter. You submit the “tweet” for approved, and once approved, the money is deposit into your account.

Is this allowed by Twitter, and Ethical?

To answer the most important question, YES! This is allowed by Twitter! and Sponsored Tweets mentions this several times on their web site, as they have worked with Twitter through the process of making the site. As for being “ethical”, there is full disclosure. When a tweet is sent through Sponsored Tweets, it is seen on twitter as “sponsored by…“, “Ad“, or “brought to you by..“. It’s this full disclosure that keeps the tweeter, the advertiser and the reader all legit.

What does a “sponsored tweet” look like?

Depending on whether or not your advertisers provides an ad copy, your tweet can look like anything. Whatever you submit will be sent over to Sponsored Tweets for approval. Other than that, it will look like a regular tweet going out through your account. The only difference is that the url is through bit.ly and instead of being posted from “web” or “tweetdeck”, it says “from Sponsored Tweets“… as it should for full disclosure.

Is anyone making Money with Sponsored Tweets?

As mentioned, in just my first couple of weeks, I’ve made an extra few hundred bucks just for a few minutes of my time approving ads, and I have a fairly small twitter following. ShoeMoney also posted about how he has earned thousands from tweeting advertiser links independently and through Sponsored Tweets.

Who else is partnered with Sponsored Tweets?

There are actually a decent amount of big name tweeters already signed on with Sponsored Tweets. I haven’t seen a way to signup online (have to call) as an Advertiser to access a full list of tweeters available, but they do have the following “featured tweeters” listed in the login area. Some of these accounts (like Kim Kardashian) have over 2 million followers.

That’s a quick summary of what Sponsored Tweets is all about, and how it’s making money and driving leads through Twitter. It’s fairly new, and always great to get into a new revenue source on the bottom floor.

The post Make Money with Sponsored Tweets appeared first on The Mom Maven.

@MomMaven @ItsToni @CorrinRenee @Laurie_Pooh @DecipherYou

alone well. This was going to stretch me and kick me out of my comfort zone right off the bat. But, I left Izeafest on Sunday knowing I made 5 new good friends and a lot of acquaintences.

I’ve already told you about the trials of my Thursday getting to Orlando and checking into the hotel. As a follow up to that post I will tell you that today they finally charged me for my room and they put it on the wrong card so I was doing some creative financial moves this morning!

I can’t go into detail about the sessions because I am still digesting all the meat we were fed by the amazing line up of speakers, and trying to figure out what it all means for The Mom Maven. I will say Ted Murphy encouraged us to define our personal brand and solidify our identity. Brian Clark gave us a 3 step blog traffic strategy. The screen gems were, ahem, “hot” and entertaining. Rae Hoffman and Michael Gray are amazing at SEO but I didn’t understand a thing they were talking about! Sarah Evans is an amazing, passionate speaker. Lucretia Pruitt can keep a strong panel in order and share about Social Media Promotion. That was all day 1!!

Friday night brought to a VIP party at IceBar Orlando. I don’t normally do the bar scene but this was a networking opportunity and I had to experience the ice room. We had a lot of fun and relaxed as we networked and listened to some interesting karaoke.

Saturday was again filled with great learning opportunities. The day’s keynote was given by Aaron Brazell who inspired us to be better people and better bloggers. Brett Bumeter moderated a panel on “What Advertisers Want” and I think the key is authenticity. Chris Brogan spoke on “Go Deep or Go Home” and being self-aware not self-involved. Then the entire conference was taken over by a 14 year old boy who, while walking into SeaWorld with his family, saw the Izeafest banner and asked to spend the day at the conference instead of in the park! That eloquent teen entrepreneur is Tommy Fishback. Pay attention to that name. He will be famous someday soon. Ted Murphy and Dan Rua closed out the conference with the introduction of Izea’s latest offering, Sponzai-sponsored guest posts.

Saturday night found us at Howl at the Moon. I must admit, this party was a let down. Our VIP party was about 100 Izeafest attenders all dressed up, sitting outside in rickety folding chairs in the hot Florida night, listening to 2 pianists and a drummer bang out requests. The night wasn’t a total loss though, I got to speak with our MC for the weekend-the amazing Bob Kodzis and “The Crocs Guy” George Smith. We left the party early so we could pack and get ready to hit SeaWorld Orlando Sunday morning. I’ll share more about SeaWorld in another post though.

I am thankful that Izea Insider Corrin chose me as one of her ticket winners so that I could attend Izeafest-but I am more thankful that after last weekend I can call her “friend”. I am also thankful to Hotels Combined for sponsoring my hotel stay. It was a wonderful weekend that I won’t soon forget.

The post Izeafest Wrap-Up appeared first on The Mom Maven.

I thought I’d give you a few hints into how you will be able to recognize me.

I have 4 of these shirts so I'll be wearing them each day.

I won this when @shamu was @realshamu on Twitter.

This goes with my dress for Friday night's party at Ice Bar Orlando.

I’m just about packed and I’ll be hitting the road around lunch time. This is my first blogging conference and I can’t wait to get started. I’m not going to the kick off at Howl-O-Scream so if you are hanging out at the Renaissance Hotel and want to network, tweet me @MomMaven. I will be tweeting, blogging, whrrling and Facebooking the event so stay tuned and make sure you check out hashtag #izeafest on Twitter.

Friday and Saturday are the conference days and there are tons of the top bloggers who will be speaking. I know I have so much to learn so that I can take this blog to the next level. Sunday is Bloggers Invade SeaWorld Day. I will be riding Manta at some point in the day, yikes! I am not a roller coaster lover but, I promised I would ride it so I will.

I hope you have a great weekend! I’m sure I will.

The post IZEAFest Here I Come! appeared first on The Mom Maven.

I have been a fan of IZEA for a while now, I believe in what they do to promote sponsored conversations on blogs and other social media forums. I feel that with the FTC looking at regulating bloggers and the compensation they receive for blogging about products, sponsored conversations are going to become the norm and IZEA is the cutting edge.

Izeafest will take place October 1-4 at SeaWorld Orlando. The list of speakers at this event is a who’s who of blogging and social media:

• Ted Murphy CEO of IZEA
• Aaron Braazell of technosailor.com
• Chris Brogan of ChrisBrogan.com
• Darren Rowse of Problogger.com
• George Smith of Crocs.com
• Sarah Evans of PRSarahEvans.com
• Wendy Piersall of Sparkplugging.com…….and many more

The IZEAFest website describes the event as,

“An interactive event designed to educate, inform and connect social media enthusiasts. Meet the world’s foremost social media experts in a collaborative, fun and open setting. Learn how to grow your traffic, build your brand and make more money online.”

The only thing that has me concerned is…on Sunday 10/4/09 the IZEAFest bloggers are invading SeaWorld Orlando. Ok, I love SeaWorld-Shamu, Clyde, Seymore and all of their friends. What has me concerened is…to enter the contest I had to agree to ride Manta, SeaWorld Florida‘s newest roller coaster and the only flying coaster in Florida! I am not a roller coaster lover but I will ride Manta. (Yikes!)

I have 16 weeks until IZEAFest and I need to reach a few personal and business goals before then. I need you, my loyal readers to hold me accountable and help me towards these goals.

1. I would like to lose at least 20 lbs before I go.
2. I need to earn enough additional money monthly so that I can upgrade to a smartphone & pay for the plan- so I can blog and tweet from the event. (It just isn’t practical to lug my laptop through SeaWorld-and my battery only lasts 15 minutes anyway.)
3. I need to find a sponsor to cover the cost of my lodging and dinners during the conference. If you know of a business, company or benefactor who may want to sponsor me, please share this link with them http://themommaven.com/sponsorship-opp/

If you would like to come to IZEAFest there are still tickets available, just click the IZEAFest link. October is a beautiful time to visit central Florida and I’d love to get to meet you.

The post I’m Going to IZEAFest! appeared first on The Mom Maven.