i wanted to write up a blog post about the various sites i’ve been working with recently to try and get a bit of extra cash. i was pretty worried about starting up this stuff, thinking i wasn’t really going to make any money but i am pretty surprised at my results. of course there are people out there making quite a bit more, but those people also have more than one blog, or they are just damn good bloggers. for a casual blogger like myself, i’m pretty happy with what i’ve made so far! so lets check out the various sites and programs i’m working with.

a small disclosure before we start. even though i am using some referral links here, i do want to mention that i did not write this blog in exchange for any payment. i am just writing this in hope that it will help others who are interested in getting into this sort of stuff.

paid blogging:

to some paid blogging is spam, and yeah i used to really hate going to blogs and seeing a ton of ads and hardly any real blog posts. however with the way things are money wise, i can see why a lot of people are gravitating to paid blogging, and it really does work out! i am using a few different sites for paid blogging.

• pay-per-post – this is an izea site that offers assignments to bloggers to write about different advertisements. its a very simple site thought sometimes there aren’t many assignments. you don’t get to go down the list and grab ones you want, instead the advertisers will pick you if they want to. you can cash out at any time but they do charge a fee if you cash out before you reach 50$.
• inpostlinks – another izea site, this one has by far paid me the most. all you need to do for this site is go to the available links, pick the one you want, write a blog and stick the link in it. they prefer you to write on the same topic as the link, but you can pretty much blog about anything and add the link in where it seems relevant. this site is great because there is no cash out. it just pays your paypal account automatically.
• social spark – yet another izea site. this site i haven’t had much luck on, and i assume that’s because my blog is not very popular. it looks great, and has a very social media feel to it, but for me most of the time its dead. there are no offers and i’ve only made a couple bucks. they do have some affiliate programs though which i have taken advantage of. this site only lets you cash out after you reach 50$.

twitter advertising:

along with the paid blogging, i resurrected my twitter account to start advertising there. its fairly simple to do and currently i have two sites that i use primarily. magpie and sponsored tweets.

sponsored tweets is another izea site, and for you to qualify for advertising you must have specific number of followers and a specific number of tweets (though i cannot remember those numbers at the moment) they have both opportunities sent to you via advertisers and cost per click ops which you can take at any time. the site uses an api that automatically sends the tweets though twitter so you don’t have to tweet them yourself. it does allow you to write the tweet in your own voice though, which makes it less robotic and more personal. i’ve not made much money with sponsored tweets, but i’ve only had the required number of followers for a few months, so i’m expecting to see more from this site in the future.

magpie runs on almost the same system but it is not an izea site. advertisers send you offers and you decide if you want the system to tweet it or not. if you accept they make sure you’re what they need, and then they send the tweet on though the api. like sponsored tweets, magpie allows you to rewrite the tweet to suit you best. magpie has been far more successful for me, but that is mostly because it does not have the limits like sponsored tweets has, therefore i was able to begin tweeting advertisements almost immediately.