Learnings in Twitter Advertising: Be-A-Magpie

This is part two of a series exploring the use of Twitter as an advertising medium. In particular, I will focus on how individual Twitterers can become part of the advertising movement. Comments, ideas, suggestions, or corrections are all welcome.

Be-A-Magpie (BAM): 

The Basics:
1) No minimum requirement for followers or age of account.

2) Must have Paypal account (for payments)
2) Every post will include some type of notification that it is sponsored. Everything from "#Sponsored" to "#ad" can appear. This is a requirement of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
3) $50 minimum balance before you can withdraw money. About average for this kind of thing.
4) Can be paid for multiple different types of tweets: Pay-per-view, Pay-per-click, Pay-per-lead and Pay-per-sale. 

The Pros:
1) It works. In short, yes, you will get paid for tweeting someone else's ads. Almost free money.
2) Account settings are simple to establish and update.

3) Pay-per-tweets generally increases as your followers increase. Assume $1 per tweet per thousand followers.

4) Often receive a "series" of tweets from advertisers as part of a program. In other words, it is common to receive 3-5 tweets from the same advertiser spread out over time.

5) Can set frequency of tweets (from 1:5 to 1:100) as well as, pre-approval / no-approval necessary.
6) Easy to set account to approve / delete or edit actual tweet. The advertiser always provides initial wording, but you can put the actual tweet in your own words. This is a great advantage if you are trying to ensure the tweets are consistent with your other tweets. Of course, you still only have 140 characters to work with.

7) Customer care organization is very responsive.

8) Advertisers do not seem to favor accounts with very large followings. Twitter accounts with small followings get opportunities too.

The Cons:
1) No option to opt-into ads. Only Be-A-Magpie knows why you are selected or not selected. As with Sponsored Tweets, it sometimes feels like you are waiting for one of the cool kids to pick you for kick-ball.

2) No ability to set keywords or category. In theory, you will only get ads related to what you are tweeting about. That process is a bit of a mystery however.

3) BAM does not share state (e.g. clicks) related to tweets. You have no idea how successful or unsuccessful your tweets are.
4) No control over price per tweet. All pricing is done by BAM / Advertisers.
5) It can be a long time between paid tweets. Best to keep in mind, that this is free money...not instant money.6) BAM Will suspend any account found to be using a "Twitter adder" (aka tweettrain, etc.). Be careful on this one.

The Verdict: 
Join Be-A-Magpie. I do wish I could get a little bit more information regarding my account through BAM, but on the whole, they treat you fairly and professionally. It may take you a while to grow your account to $50, but given the level of effort, opportunity to present your account effectively, and the results, BAM is worth your time.

To sign-up, you can click HERE.