Track your Blog Performance, Make Friends, and Make Money Online with SocialSpark

I recently joined SocialSpark because of all the buzz about it in every blog I go, pretty much like with Entrecard back in January. SocialSpark and Pay Per Post are sister companies both owned by Izea; but a lot of bloggers are saying that it’s a lot easier to get your blog approved in SocialSpark compared to Pay Per Post. One interesting feature that SocialSpark boasts is its integration of social networking to the usual sponsored post program. SocialSpark also promises about creating unity between advertisers and bloggers. This I have yet to see; maybe when there will be more advertisers and competition of being first among bloggers isn’t that much of an issue. If you’re one of the small bloggers and has an interest in earning bucks every now and then through paid posts, give SocialSpark a try and see if it works for you.

Here's their code of ethics:
-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

Make Friends

SocialSpark gives you the ability to make friends with like minded bloggers who have also participated in their program. You can view their profile pages, rate them via a prop (thumbs up) or a drop (thumbs down), send them private messages or leave a comment in their profiles, and make friend requests to get in touch with them or just boast that you’ve made hundreds of networks inside SocialSpark.

Make Money

Generally you could earn something in between $5 to $30 from SocialSpark depending on the how much the advertiser can offer. The price fluctuates from time to time depending on the number of bloggers who will participate for that opportunity and, perhaps, the overall rank of your blog (traffic, pageviews, Alexa, Google, and ROI). Also there will be some offers where you won’t be qualified to take based on your blog’s ranking and reach.

There are two ways to earn money in SocialSpark: via blog sponsorship and sponsored posts. In blog sponsorship, the advertiser pays you an amount of money for each day that their ad shows up in your blog. I haven’t personally seen how it actually worked but they provide a screenshot of how it’s supposed to look like in your blog. Imagine Adbrite interstitials, I guess that’s how it feels like. Once you’ve opted to try blog sponsorships, you can choose how many days an ad shows up in your blog.

The other one is through sponsored posts. You are paid for writing a post about a particular product. The advertisers often require that you write words not less than a particular amount or you won’t be paid at all. Sometimes, they would also require screenshots or images along with your post. This post you’re reading is a sponsored post.

Although you won’t earn anything from this feature, I think it’s better to include it because it was designed to help bloggers avoid “blogger’s block” by giving them ideas to write about. There’s this feature called sparks. They are free opportunities placed by both bloggers and advertisers and are taken without pay. Sparks are a great way to interact with other bloggers and begin to create a community within SocialSpark.

View Analytics

SocialSpark utilizes IZEA’s own RealRank. It enables both advertisers and bloggers to view the specs of each blog right on the SocialSpark website. Izea’s Analytics include information such as page views, visitors, RealRank average, Alexa rank, and Google PageRank. You can use the analytics to check your blog’s performance, and at the same time a competitor’s performance as well.