How can I make money with MySpace? Or rather, should you even bother with developing MySpace as another source of online income? As a social network that sees very heavy daily visitor traffic from millions of users, MySpace has been the target of aspiring entrepreneurs, internet marketers and webmasters.
As everyone knows, traffic of all sorts can be transformed into profit through various monetization methods. MySpace is no exception.
A large number of webmasters, marketers and businesses are trying to promote their products on websites on MySpace and the effects can be seen in the large amount of spammy advertisements across the MySpace network.
It would not be inaccurate to say that making money on MySpace is incrementally more difficult now because of market saturation, due to the entry of so many businesses or individuals who are trying to get a piece of the lucrative MySpace pie.
Personally, I’ve always been interested in MySpace marketing and MySpace related websites because of the sheer market size that MySpace commands.
I’m also one of those optimistic enough to believe that it’s still possible to make money with MySpace. In my opinion, one just needs to be skilled at selecting the right monetization method and knowledgeable about the different tactics you can use to market your product or business.
MySpace and Commercial Activity
It is important to know that you can’t promote affiliate programs or commercial services openly on MySpace since its against their Terms of Agreement. This is something to keep in mind before you begin any type of marketing or promotional method.
Point 5 on MySpace’s TOS talks about Non-Commercial Use by Members:
The MySpace Services are for the personal use of Members only and may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com.
Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services, including collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the MySpace Website is prohibited.
Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other forms of solicitation may be removed from Member profiles without notice and may result in termination of Membership privileges. Appropriate legal action will be taken for any illegal or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services.
What this actually means for MySpace marketers is that aggressive and blatant advertising will not work. Everything that you do will have to be somewhat under the radar, especially when it comes to selling products or services.
10 Ways to Make Money from MySpace
I’ve dug around the web and haven’t really found any useful guide to making money with MySpace and so I’ve decided to come up with my own list of methods you can use to earn some extra money from MySpace.
Most of the items on this list came from several webmaster friends who earned a consistent income through the funneling of MySpace traffic to highly relevant websites with various monetization options.
Depending on your personal ethics, some of the methods on the list may not be methods that you will want to pursue. That’s perfectly fine. My aim was just to record down a list of the ways that one can possibly use to make money through MySpace.
Here is the list in full:
1. Bulletin-based Advertising. Mastering this is the first and most fundamental step towards making money with MySpace. Add as many friends as possible (either manually or through automated software) and learn to send out bulletins or comments which drive traffic towards your money-making sites.
Depends on how targeted or aggressive your broadcasting, these methods can be regarded by MySpace and other users as spam.
2. Use Affiliate programs. Direct Myspace traffic to your website which contains your affiliate links or product feeds. I suggest going for Cost Per Action programs which only require the visitor to submit his or her email address or sign up for a free account with any website.
Dating network, free X360 offers or ringtones would generally do well although some affiliate networks may not be too pleased if you primarily get all your affiliate traffic from MySpace alone. Mixing MySpace into your overall affiliate marketing strategy will be more balanced and useful.
3. Start a MySpace Resource site. Your aim is to make money through Adsense and other advertising by driving MySpace traffic to your site.
The main attraction of your site will be the availability of free MySpace resources such as templates, codes, graphics and survey generators etc. Note however, that many webmasters have reported poor click values for MySpace resource sites because of the low paying ads.
4. Create dozens of accounts everyday and sell them to webmasters which are looking to promote their website on MySpace. There is actually demand for multiple Myspace accounts in webmaster and affiliate marketing forums.
5. Offer Advertising Space for webmasters and businesses. This will only work if you have a large number of friends on your MySpace accounts. You can probably charge webmasters a fee for putting up a link to their website or business.
This is usually done through bulletin-style notices that go out to multiple members or mass commenting. Think of it as something similar to an email list.
6. Partner with independent musicians and bands to reach out to their fan base. This will allow you to get some sales for your products if they are highly relevant. I suppose that T-shirts and fashion accessories will do well when they receive personal recommendations from musicians.
7. Create and Sell Myspace scripts or templates. You can either set up your own website to sell these templates or sell them to MySpace Resource websites, who are always looking for new material. Keeping the price competitive is an important factor here.
8. Build a MySpace website around your business. For example, if you are selling shoes, you could build a MySpace page which highlights a specific section of your website (E.G. sports sneakers, vintage shoes) which would appeal to the MySpace market. This will usually get some visitors to your website and may lead to actual sales.
9. Start a Proxy site. Proxies are websites, which allow users to surf websites which may be banned in a specific locality. They are usually monetized by Adsense or other types of contextual based advertising.
Proxies are popular with the MySpace crowd because it allows them to bypass web filters that are set up by the schools or businesses to block Myspace websites. There are a lot of proxies out there and competition for MySpace and other internet users is quite strong.
I suggest getting into the Proxy business only if you really know how to promote your proxy effectively on both MySpace and the search engines.
10. Use MySpace Groups for targeted marketing. Visit the category relevant to your business and carefully drop targeted links to your website, which should contain useful content alongside affiliate programs/Adsense.
A List of MySpace-friendly Websites and Affiliate Programs
Like any other type of market, picking a highly relevant affiliate program or website and promoting it through MySpace is absolutely vital for monetary success.
The MySpace market is made up of mostly teenagers, so choosing products or websites which appeal to their interests would be very useful indeed.
Here is a list of some websites and affiliate programs which will work well with the MySpace crowd.
* Humor and Entertainment websites
* Social Video websites
* Free music and games download sites
* Wallpaper download websites
* MySpace Resource websites
* Free Ringtone download websites/affiliate programs
* Free software/application download websites
* Music related websites
* Dating/Social networking websites
* Online clothing/T-Shirts websites and affiliate programs
Just to point out that I’ve not included any specific MySpace scripts or tools which can automate the profile building or marketing process because there are just far too many of them out there.
If there’s enough interest, I might cover these scripts and the overall marketing/traffic directing process in a separate post. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
BloggerCon - Making Money with Your Blog
BloggerCon - Making Money with Your Blog
Doc Searls has an interesting post on making money with blogs in preparation for a session on the topic at the next Blogger Con. He asks a lot of thought provoking questions and then puts forward an interesting case…
‘As you can see, I have a position here. I believe it’s far more important (and interesting) to make money because of our blogs, rather than with them; just as we make money because we have phones rather than with our phones.
There are exceptions. Some of us make money by selling on the phone. If that’s you, think about what trying to sell over your blog (instead of the phone) would do to your relationships with readers.
Of course, lots of people use advertising to defray the costs of blogging. And, to be frank, I really don’t care much if you have advertising on your blog, or if you make money that way. If that makes you happy, or makes you money, fine. I expect we’ll spend some time comparing various advertising options. But let’s also ask, How interesting is that, once you’re past describing whatever it takes to get going with Adsense or Blogads? It’s cool that they provide a service and an income stream. But I’d like to see us budget time for each of the potential topics we can cover.’
เขียนโดย make money blog ที่ 6:42 น. 0 ความคิดเห็น
How do bloggers make money from blogs?
How do bloggers make money from blogs?
I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogs.
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.
Income Streams for Bloggers - How they Make Money from Blogs
Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. Another two popular ones with many is BlogAds. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and CrispAds, Text Link Ads.
Adgenta, Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, DoubleClickTribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, Bidvertiser, Fastclick Value Click and OneMonkey (to name just some of the options - I’m sure I’ve forgotten some) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (so I hear).
RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.
Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.
Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.
Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.
Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.
Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.
Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!
Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fundraising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.
Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).
Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress (although I have to say they’ve lost one of my own orders and are being quite unresponsive to my requests to follow it up at present). While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.
Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.
As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.
Doc Searls has an interesting post on making money with blogs in preparation for a session on the topic at the next Blogger Con. He asks a lot of thought provoking questions and then puts forward an interesting case…
‘As you can see, I have a position here. I believe it’s far more important (and interesting) to make money because of our blogs, rather than with them; just as we make money because we have phones rather than with our phones.
There are exceptions. Some of us make money by selling on the phone. If that’s you, think about what trying to sell over your blog (instead of the phone) would do to your relationships with readers.
Of course, lots of people use advertising to defray the costs of blogging. And, to be frank, I really don’t care much if you have advertising on your blog, or if you make money that way. If that makes you happy, or makes you money, fine. I expect we’ll spend some time comparing various advertising options. But let’s also ask, How interesting is that, once you’re past describing whatever it takes to get going with Adsense or Blogads? It’s cool that they provide a service and an income stream. But I’d like to see us budget time for each of the potential topics we can cover.’
เขียนโดย make money blog ที่ 6:42 น. 0 ความคิดเห็น
How do bloggers make money from blogs?
How do bloggers make money from blogs?
I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogs.
I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.
The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.
Income Streams for Bloggers - How they Make Money from Blogs
Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. Another two popular ones with many is BlogAds. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and CrispAds, Text Link Ads.
Adgenta, Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, Peak Click, DoubleClickTribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, Industry Brains, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, AVN, Pheedo, Adknowledge, YesAdvertising, RevenuePilotTextAds, SearchFeed, Target Point, Bidvertiser, Fastclick Value Click and OneMonkey (to name just some of the options - I’m sure I’ve forgotten some) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (so I hear).
RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.
Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.
Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.
Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.
Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.
Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.
Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!
Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fundraising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.
Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).
Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress (although I have to say they’ve lost one of my own orders and are being quite unresponsive to my requests to follow it up at present). While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.
Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.
As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
adsense
AdSense is an ad serving program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, more recently, video advertisements on their sites. These ads are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-thousand-impressions basis. Google is also currently beta-testing a cost-per-action based service.
Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted ad system may sign up through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the ads are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the ads is often relevant to the website.
It currently uses JavaScript code to incorporate the advertisements into a participating site. If it is included on a site which has not yet been crawled by the Mediabot, it will temporarily display advertisements for charitable causes known as public service announcements (PSAs). (Note that the Mediabot is a separate crawler from the Googlebot that maintains Google's search index.)
Many sites use AdSense to monetize their content and some webmasters work hard to maximize their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:
1. They use a wide range of traffic generating techniques including but not limited to online advertising.
2. They build valuable content on their sites which attracts AdSense ads which pay out the most when they get clicked.
3. They use copy on their websites that encourage clicks on ads. Note that Google prohibits people from using phrases like "Click on my AdSense ads" to increase click rates. Phrases accepted are "Sponsored Links" and "Advertisements".
The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction, in that it commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid.
Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted ad system may sign up through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the ads are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the ads is often relevant to the website.
It currently uses JavaScript code to incorporate the advertisements into a participating site. If it is included on a site which has not yet been crawled by the Mediabot, it will temporarily display advertisements for charitable causes known as public service announcements (PSAs). (Note that the Mediabot is a separate crawler from the Googlebot that maintains Google's search index.)
Many sites use AdSense to monetize their content and some webmasters work hard to maximize their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:
1. They use a wide range of traffic generating techniques including but not limited to online advertising.
2. They build valuable content on their sites which attracts AdSense ads which pay out the most when they get clicked.
3. They use copy on their websites that encourage clicks on ads. Note that Google prohibits people from using phrases like "Click on my AdSense ads" to increase click rates. Phrases accepted are "Sponsored Links" and "Advertisements".
The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction, in that it commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid.
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