Another major new media player, the Huffington Post, is entering the pay per Tweet, aka sponsored Tweet space, as reported by AdAge and the World Advertising Research Center.  
http://bit.ly/6dAo8R

The key to success, says the Huffington Post: use sponsored tweets to provide relevant content and thus goodwill; don't try to hawk your products.

From AdAge:

"'Marketers will receive guidance on the best ways to join the conversations, said Greg Coleman, the site's president and chief revenue officer since September. An advertiser sponsoring a Twitter subject page around the World Series might interject with relevant baseball statistics -- just to earn a little good will and brand halo, he suggested. Or a health-care company sponsoring a Twitter page around health-care policy might post a paid Tweet 'to bring to fore the facts' but in a neutral way, he said.

'You cannot use the social engagement for the purposes of really hawking your products' Mr. Coleman said. "The advertiser is really put in a position where they need to add value to the conversation that's taking place.'"

What do you think?  Who will be the first to use this offering from Huffington Post?  Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.  

http://www.Twitter.com/iano1000 

For more info on Sponsored Tweet developments, check out the rest of this blog as well as SearchandSocialMedia.com's post on ways to reach social media audiences with PPC and Pay Per Tweet tactics: 

http://searchandsocialmedia.com/2009/07/5-ways-to-reach-social-media-audiences-via-paid-search-semppc-and-sponsorship-tactics.html

(Click the logo above to see Stumble Upon's demo video)

Stumble Upon Advertising is interesting in that it provides real-time feedback (both qualitative and quantative) on your ads.

Quantitative: Visitors, % Liked, % Disliked

Qualitative: actual user comments on your page

To start a campaign: http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/

Advertiser Guidelines seem to prohibit lead generation campaigns: http://www.stumbleupon.com/content_guidelines.html

Have you used Stumble Upon advertising?  Share your thoughts.

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/iano1000

In July, I wrote about 5 Ways to Reach Social Media Audiences with Pay Per Click, Pay Per Tweet and Sponsorship Opportunities over at SearchandSocialMedia.com, and this space is continuing to heat up.

<a href='http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ad.ly+be-a-magpie.com+twitterhawk.com/?metric=uv'><img src=' ' /></a>

Just a month since launching, Ad.ly has become the most popular Twitter advertising platform, beating out both TwitterHawk and Magpie based on unique monthly visitors in October.

Last week, Twitter began talking about their upcoming Twitter advertising platform, which will add credibility to the Social PPC space overall; but Ad.ly has done a lot to further the cause already by signing up a wide range of celebrity Twitterers, such as LeVar Burton (director), Greg Grunberg (TV actor), Jeremiah Owyang (digital strategist), Robert Scoble (blogger) ViperID (SEO).

Of the major Twitter advertising platforms, Ad.ly now seems to have the most credibility and has signed up adverisers such as NBC and HBO; however TwitterHawk still seems to be the best option for a broader range of businesses due to superior targeting capabilities (e.g. keyword- and geotargeting) and low cost per click (max $.05 with s site average of $.02).

Other opportunities are being developed and tested; I am still researching pricing models.

FourSquare integrates with Twitter, and you can sign up here:

Mashable has a good article on FourSquare ads here: http://bit.ly/5wimrz

And this NY Times article on FourSquare is also a good read: http://bit.ly/4uQqcP

Are you using FourSquare ads to promote your business?

Find me on FourSquare: Ian Orekondy 

@iano1000 on Twitter

And check out http://www.searchandsocialmedia.com for more insights, analysis and case studies.