Now this spark is making blogging even more exciting

Posted on May 11, 2008
Filed Under Blog Resources, Reviews, moneymakers

There’s a new spark that gives bloggers reasons to smile and get excited lately. Its all about getting social with other bloggers and getting paid at the same time. I am not talking about just any other social networking site. It is a revolutionary social marketing and networking site that allows bloggers and advertisers to connect with each other.

I am talking about SocialSpark and nothing else. It is a great place to build a community of bloggers who share the same passion, and at the same time, gives them an opportunity to find blog sponsors and get paid by displaying sponsor banners on blogs, or write sponsored contents a blogger may find interesting and relevant. SocialSpark also allows community members to create Sparks, posts to inform the community about your great ideas or about your blog. Sparks are usually free, and you could offer back a review or post about the members who took your Spark opportunity. Now how this affect a blog’s relevance to readers? It won’t, since a blogger can freely select relevant topics to write about. Readers can easily distinguish it as a sponsored content because a Disclosure Badge is placed after each sponsored post, thus making it transparent. Reviews are real opinions of the blogger, thus it can easily merge into the blogger’s overall blog content and most of all, it is search-engine friendly as it enforces a “no follow” tag on links - now this one really what sparked my interest upon seeing the email invite from Izea. These are basically what SocialSpark considered as their Code of Ethics:

-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

There is nothing as exciting as getting paid for the things you love to do. And if blogging is your passion, meeting more interesting people and at the same time getting paid to write about the things that interests you are surely among those reasons why blogging is such a wonderful thing that the world wide web brings.

The downside?

Since I have resolved to be objective and responsible in my blog reviews, some downsides of this awesome program will not gonna escape my scrutinies.

First, you got to be very patient in getting your reservation for opportunities. It may take weeks before you get your slot. Perhaps, this should be improved once more and more advertisers are using the system. Also, the offer prices may drop like Enron stocks in a matter of days. Since this is new, adjustments to changes in price offers may take some time for general acceptance among bloggers.

Navigation also needs improvements - especially on putting a site-wide link to your taken opportunities. And when browsing for opportunities, clicking on “back” button when you’re in page 6 doesn’t take you back on page 5 (even if you came from page 5), instead it all takes you back to the first opportunity page.

Overall assessment?

If you like socializing with many other bloggers, adding new friends, give some nice (or perhaps sarcastic) comments to anyone, give a thumbs up (or prop) to your favorite members, advertisers and opportunities, generate traffic to your blog by creating a Spark opportunity, and make money with sponsors and sponsored contents, then this spark should kindle your passion for blogging even more.

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Comments

13 Responses to “Now this spark is making blogging even more exciting”

Deimos Tel`Arin on May 11th, 2008 7:05 am

Stupid SS refused to approve my blog.

So it sucks, period. -_-

Deimos Tel`Arin’s last blog post..Silent Thoughts - Lighting up our Heart
coolingstar9 on May 11th, 2008 10:42 am

This is really a good news for bloggers. To earn some money and enjoy blogging at the same time.
Have a nice day.
From: coolingstar9

coolingstar9’s last blog post..Sympathy
Blog Sponsor on May 11th, 2008 12:07 pm

You seemed to have signed up for sponsored posts but haven’t seen much sponsored posts yet. Does this mean there’s not much opportunity yet? I like the concept of having someone sponsoring my content but, are these really worth it?
Michael Aulia on May 11th, 2008 8:48 pm

Welcome to the club

There are quite a lot of opportunities, but it’s hard to get approved as there are too many bloggers requesting for the opportunities, I guess?

Michael Aulia’s last blog post..Happy Mother’s Day 2008
bendz on May 12th, 2008 12:23 am

i was wondering why the sponsor bar after my post won’t show up.

I’ve done about 5 reviews for SS already

bendz’s last blog post..Defuse the Summer Heat
bendz on May 12th, 2008 7:06 am

teka, 250 words lang ata required heheh ang haba na ng post mo. heheh

I just finished mine.

bendz’s last blog post..BlogCatalog+PayPerPost+Alexa=?
bloggista on May 13th, 2008 12:44 pm

@Deimos - LOL, seems you’re really f*cked up mate. What seems to be the problem? Hope the Izea guys evaluate blogs better than what they’re doing now.

@Coolingstar, yep, you bet this one’s good. However, just like what Michael said, it takes so long to reserve for opportunities.

@Michael, in my case, my problem is the timing when they reserve an opps. I had actually twice reserved for this opps, and twice its gone - by the time I get to open my email for notification, its already gone. So you got to make reservations again.
bloggista on May 13th, 2008 12:47 pm

@Bendz, wow dude, seems you’re racking up many dollars lately. LOL. Hey, the sponsor bar is just a simple copy and paste into your post with the CODE view.

Hehe, turned out this post is more than 250 words, LOL. But Michaels has more or less same long post too. Hehe. Would they disapprove the post if its too long?
bendz on May 13th, 2008 1:52 pm

i just think long posts are not good for blogs. heheh silly me. nyahahahahahha.

bendz’s last blog post..BlogCatalog + PayPerPost + Alexa= ?
bloggista on May 13th, 2008 4:16 pm

@Bendz, haha. You got a point there. Unfortunately SocialSpark told me there are inline Google ads on this post. Did you see any Google ads inside the post? Bummer. LOL

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