This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.
This year I’ve really been focusing on my blog more, trying to make the effort to write more posts. To help “fund” this interest (sorry for the terrible pun) I signed up for google advertising, and a sponsored blog post site, SocialSpark. Not only do I benefit by earning money from my blog, but the actual thought of earning is enough to persuade me to continue writing. I truly enjoy writing, and sharing all my pointless experiences with the world, so it’s pretty ideal.
I had been looking around at paid blogging sites, but they all required the user to just sit around and wait for a specific opportunity to be presented to them. Not fun. Looking around on socialspark.com I was impressed to see it was completely different – the advertiser posts the opportunity in the “marketplace”, and if you’re qualified, you take it. Done! The advertiser benefits by having multiple people take up the opportunity, and the blogger has the flexibility to select only topics which they can connect to, and find interest in. No doubt it ends up with more fascinating and useful articles.
Signing up was simple – create an account, paste some code in your blog, and verify it. Done! Then you browse to the marketplace and see what’s available. The first offer for all users is to write a sponsored post about socialspark.com, exactly like this one. So I confess, I’m earning money right now (thanks for helping me out).
It’s also like a social network in itself though. You can become “friends” with other bloggers, which theoretically is a new way to connect with other people out there. From browsing other users I have already discovered a couple of blogs that I’ve subscribed to. I’m still new to the service and working my way around, so I’m still yet to discover the power of the network, however having the ability to find new people and blogs definitely doesn’t hurt.
Of course, there are a few rules when it comes to submitting an acceptable post. There is a full Code of Ethics available if you wanted to peruse it, but really, it comes down to a few major points:
- Letting your readers know it’s a paid post. For example, at the top of this post you will find full disclosure that this is a paid blog, however;
- You must be completely honest with your readers. If I had signed up for socialspark.com, but had some major issues with the site and had noted it on this blog, they would appreciate the feedback and I would still be paid. This isn’t a service where you get paid for lying to people, and I’m definitely not interested in that.
Time will tell on how valuable this service will be, but given I’m currently saving for a wedding, every dollar counts.
If you’re you’re also interested in earning money from writing, click here to sign up. And most importantly, I’d love to hear your opinions on paid blogging. If you think it devalues the blog and you lose respect for the writer, I definitely want to hear from you. Let me know!
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