Twitter Money: Sponsored Tweets or MyLikes?

Blogs started out as little more than personal journals where regular people could share their thoughts with the world. They quickly progressed into viable business with true revenue streams. The same thing is happening with Twitter and other online social networks. Twitter is still personal, to be sure, but it also represents a sizable money-making opportunity.

As you may recall, I wrote a post on how to make money on Twitter late last year. At the time, I mentioned that Sponsored Tweets could be a viable source of online income for the right people. There’s more competition in that monetization realm now and I’ve given a similar (but different) service a try. It’s called MyLikes and, while it may appear to the same on the surface, it operates quite differently from Sponsored Tweets.

Make Money with Sponsored Tweets?

With Sponsored Tweets, you set up an account and you wait for the advertisers to come to you. You have the ability to set your own price (Sponsored Tweets takes a 50% revenue share) and you are paid on a per-tweet basis. If your price is $10, for instance, you will receive $5 for that tweet.

Some advertisers will write the tweet for you, whereas others will get you to write the tweet yourself. In either case, the payment for that tweet is independent from how well the tweet performs for the advertiser in terms of generating clicks and leads. When your account balance reaches the minimum threshold of $50, you can request to withdraw the funds.

Make Money with MyLikes for Twitter?

Where MyLikes differs significantly from Sponsored Tweets is in how the advertiser-publisher relationship is forged. Rather than wait for advertisers to find you, the onus is on you to select the advertiser from the MyLikes marketplace. When you log in, you can look at the available “sponsored likes” and send out a sponsored tweet immediately. You can “like” non-sponsored products and services too.

The other critical difference is in the payment. Sponsored Tweets operates on a flat-rate schedule, as described above, whereas MyLikes is performance-based. You get paid per click, much like how (most) Google AdSense ads work. Also, the minimum payment threshold is just $2 with Paypal transfers being issued once a week.

Which Service is Superior?

If you’re looking to make money on Twitter, I suggest that you avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Sponsored Tweets and MyLikes have their respective strengths.

With the former, you don’t have to actively look for advertisers and you don’t have to worry about how the tweets perform. However, the payment threshold is higher and, if you don’t get enough advertisers, it may take a very long time to see that money in hand.

With the latter, you can send out a “sponsored like” as often as once a day, choosing the advertisers yourself. You also have higher earning potential, since you get paid per click rather than per tweet. Without an adequate level of performance, however, you can make less money. In fact, for whatever reason, I found that the tweets I sent out through Sponsored Tweets typically generated more clicks than the ones I sent out with MyLikes. Go figure.

Do you have any questions about either service? Feel free to follow me on Twitter or pose your query through the comment form below.