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Andy Bailey has generously given me on his behalf to giveaway 2 licensed versions of CommentLuv Premium for Free at the Show Me The Blog Conference 2011.

Blondish.net currently uses CommentLuv Premium and it has been a dream. It has 8 plugins in one to combat spamming, amp up the Commentluv system, KeywordLuv and even Twitterlink ID.

Previously I was using Intense Debate and I have noticed a decline in commenting due to the options to log into Twitter and Facebook to comment. I have done away with Intense Debate (even nearly planned a funeral for it), and turned to my own comment system amped up with CommentLuv Premium.

Please make sure to check out CommentLuv Premium to find out all the features. If you already use GASP (Growmap Anti-Spam Plugin) and regular CommentLuv Right now, this is worth the look and investment. Currently, the plugin is not available to the public yet. I was lucky enough to become a beta user. However, I was lucky enough to get a few copies of the plugin to giveaway.

So… if you are a Show me the Blog conference attendee… please go to Twitter and tweet out to qualify for an entry toward the giveaway and Tweet:

I want to win @CommentLuv Premium at #SMBSTL Conference. http://commentluv.com

A drawing will be held on Saturday near the end of the conference and the two winners will be notified with directions on how to get their copy.

If you do not win, please consider signing up for the CommentLuv Premium updates. Right now it is a hit with FamousBloggers.net, BasicBlogTips.com, and even Just-Ask-Kim.com… well besides me loving it too.

Good luck!

EDIT: The drawing ended at 4:30PM on Saturday, October 22. Using Random.org, @RealMomExperts and @RobynsWorld were choen as the winners. Congrats!!!!

I was recently going through some of my older posts on sponsored tweetings and making money twitter, that even though there are a lot of people who have read, shared, and commented, I wondered, how many of my readers actually make money on twitter?

It does not matter if you are using Sponsored Tweets, Twtmob, Fiverr, or another service, I thought it would be cool to see the results. Also, if you do, mind commenting and saying what services you use and what has worked for you?

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I like Izea and the properties it holds, but unfortunately, the services have really just kind of hit rock bottom. I took a 30 day challenge for the PRO member account for Sponsored Tweets and… that was a wasted venture.

I had no opportunities offered and the only thing I could say was that I paid $1.99 for little blue icon that said PRO. It was very disappointing. And even though I kept my account for nearly half a month more in the PRO status, I still did not get any offers.

It may be $1.99, but it is not worth it.

Here are some of the reactions in the Sponsored Tweets Get Satisfaction forum from others.

Here is the update from Carri, a staff member of Izea.

While I am not telling you to not use Sponsored Tweets, I am recommending that you use it at your own risk. Based on my own experience and those of the community there, it is not a service that works well for those with little followers or even a decent followers with a decent true reach. You may be better off to offer sponsored tweet services from your own site or through Fiverr.

Have you taken the Sponsored Tweets PRO member challenge lately? What are you thoughts? If not, and you are a basic member of Sponsored Tweets, how has the service worked for you? (Please do leave your twitter ID so I can go and follow you on Twitter.)

Izea, known for its properties such as SponsoredTweets, PayPerPost, and others, recently acquired Be-A-Magpie.com. Basically “Magpie” is a paid to tweet services, just like Izea’s property, Sponsored Tweets.

While I see this is great for Izea, is it really going to be good news for Sponsored Tweet publishers who are already complaining about the lack of decent opportunities available to them. On top of that, with the recent introduction of Sponsored Tweets PRO program, will there be more opportunities.

As an early on signup with Sponsored Tweets, I had hopes. In the beginning, I got decent opportunities and it has dwindled down to once every few months. I avoid the CPC opportunities because they are insultingly low. Some of the opportunities were even a bit risque for my tweet stream to handle. (I am picky when it comes to what I tweet, especially links and any sponsored tweets.)

I guess you can say, I had high hopes for this service, but there has been a lot more focus on nabbing celebrities as ad publishers. This is great, but I thought the point to be able to monetize tweet streams was similar to the paid to blog concept, trying to reach people by using others who may be able to reach where celebrities do not.

Not every celebrity is followed by every person on Twitter. Of course, there are a lot of great celebrities, but most of these people do not use Twitter specifically as a means for reaching out to people and influencing. Not all celebrities chat with people who respond to their tweets. In fact, this kind of ties in with my popularity versus influence post. Not all celebrities are influential, but they are popular.

I get more opportunities for sponsored tweets via Fiverr than Izea, mostly because I am sure the advertisers there are looking for cheaper ways to invest in specific people to advertise their sites or products. Twitter is not exactly growing too much these days, so advertisers are pretty choosy with whom they want endorsing their products and services. So, I am also sure this is a big factor on why I am not getting that many opportunities.

I will be watching Sponsored Tweets closely to see if there is any positive effect with the Magpie acquisition. Right now, I am a bit skeptical.

As I drank my morning coffee and skimmed the news, I read that Courtney Love has settled a lawsuit for $430,000 over a tweet that she had written regarding a fashion designer. Even though $430,000 is not a lot of money for a celebrity like Courtney Love, for most people spending so much money over a tweet is ridiculous and not feasible. Keep in mind that the $430,000 does not cover her attorney’s fee! This got me to thinking about social networking sites and litigation.

We all are aware of the benefits of social networking sites. You get to keep in touch with people, inform others of what you are doing, and overall just use it to be in the “know.” However, communicating in cyberspace also exposes people to many risks. The most common risks known are being prone to scams and identity thefts because your information is out there. However, with updating your social networking profile, there comes another risk—the possibility of being sued.

People often say that you can sue over anything. Well, it sure does seem that way. Especially when you learn that Courtney Love paid $430,000 over a 140 character tweet! In reality though, causes of actions such as defamation can cause people to pay a hefty amount. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy for people to defame others. With a few key strokes and the resulting words causing harm to the reputation of others, a person can very quickly find themselves a lawyer’s office trying to get out of a lawsuit they never thought they would be in.

The reality is that when people update their Facebook or Twitter statuses with opinionated views, it rarely crosses their mind that they could be sued over their Twitter tweet or Facebook update. What does this tell us? Do social networking sites have a responsibility to educate their users? It is necessary for them to warn their users that they may be sued over an update?

I feel that they do not. Rather, people need to educate themselves on any unfavorable consequence that may result from their online actions. After all, if we are all adult enough to use social networking sites and consent to having our information out there, then we are adult enough to educate ourselves on the dangers of our tweets and Facebook updates. In fact, I believe it is out responsibility to do so. Especially if we want to enjoy our Facebook and Twitter sites, rather than sit in a courtroom dreading the day we joined.

There are tons of sites out there for Twitter users to harness in order to have a better experience. Some may be getting more followers, some may be unfollowing, some may be simply using to Tweet. Some of these services participated in tweet pirating – a method of where you joined the service and they felt it their right to tweet their service on your behalf. Often this required you giving them authorization to your account.

It is important to make sure that what you join in order to enhance your Twitter experience that you have the option to avoid having the service tweet out a message. In the past, the Twitter streams were riddled with tweets asking people to join different services and it became so bad that it was literally a sea of spam. It also led to a lot of hacked accounts on some of the dubious services that had popped up.

Do not become a victim of tweet pirating. Make sure that the service provider has the option to turn off the option to tweet on your behalf. In the spirit of being able to use something for free, which is usually the case mentioned by these Twitter opportunities, you should not be expected to do anything in return unless you feel like it.

A lot of companies forget that when they use “free” with any type of service, they are false advertising. You never know if they might be hacked and your account is hijacked. Or they decide to change up rules later and publish different tweets to promote other money making ventures.

If you are a part of any service that does not allow you to shut off their tweeting – unsubscribe or if it is not possible, change your password. These days a lot of services really need to be taking part in the Twitter oAuth system anyway so the only place you are sharing your password is Twitter.

What are your thoughts on tweet pirating? Have you used services in the past or currently use any that require this?

Fiverr has been a good place for people seeking to pay little for a service or goods. It works well for those willing to do those jobs for little money. One of the worthwhile jobs is using Fiverr for monetizing your Twitter social network stream. In other words – create your own version of Sponsored Tweets.

You can name what you will tweet about and how often. Of course, keep in mind how much you believe your Twitter stream is worth and that you are not going to spam the heck out of them. Putting guidelines down on what type of tweets will allow buyers at Fiverr to know if their content will be of any interest to them. That is what they are looking for – people to click on their link and perhaps purchase their produce.

So be honest when putting yourself out on Fiverr because you could get repeat buyers and with each feedback left, it will look good for your reputation.

Please note that if you do live in the United States, you are still required to disclose endorsements. This is even if the buyer’s country is not within the United States. Using the hashmarks #ad or #spon will suffice. Also, “sponsored by” is fine.

Have you tried Fiverr? How have you used it (as a buyer or a service provider)?

For many companies the move to Twitter can be a scary one. Most of the time the reservations are they feel like they won’t have enough to write, people won’t be interested in their tweets and the marketing possibilities are not worth the foray into this area. I was in this boat when I joined Twitter as well, but these ideas could not be further from the truth.

Finding Followers and Interacting With Them

Twitter is a business built on interaction. If you sit on a soapbox and just blast links at your followers, unless you are someone famous, you will quickly have none. You have to connect with the people that care about what you are talking about and interact with them. How can you do this? Through using twitters search feature.

First, I almost never do this on twitter itself, but I use products such as HootSuite or TweetDeck. These services allow you to save your favorite searches so they can be auto updated during the day to see if there are new people for you to interact with. The first thing to do is to decide what keywords your company is targeting with their social media efforts. If you are an outdoor company then maybe you would consider the keyword “outdoor.” In HootSuite you would add a new tab and select search then enter the phrase “Outdoor” and then “?.”

What this new tab you created does for you is aggregate all of the times that someone searches for that keyword in the form of a question. Say John from Texas asks “where is the best place to buy outdoor gear?” then that tweet will show up and you can easily respond to him with your recommendation.

This not only helps your interaction with your customers but it also allows them to see you as an authority on this subject, which will help later when you tell them you have a sale on perfect camping gear for their next trip.

The possibilities are endless for ways you can leverage this with your company. If you run a salon you can search for hair questions. If an SEO company you can search for optimization questions. Whatever the Twitterverse needs answers too, you can be the go to in your niche. Thus giving you something to tweet about as well as helping you easily interact with potential customers.