Posts Tagged ‘izea’

Izeafest ‘09 Day 1

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

I’ve been trying to get this post up for a while, but real life seems to get in the way.  How would I describe Izeafest?  Awesome comes to mind.  The best one yet does too (and I’ve been to every single one of these).  It was one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended.  Nothing irritates me more when I know more than the speakers on panels (which is one of my beefs about BlogHer).  I pay a lot of money to go to conferences, and I want to learn — not just be told what I already know (or be given bad information). *off soap box*

Izeafest started off with a trip to Busch Gardens for Howl-O-Scream.  Interesting is the best word I can use for it.  We got to go through some haunted houses and ride some awesome roller coasters.  I even got to do my souvenir shopping (which is so much better than airport shopping).  We got back pretty late and went to bed.

Day one of Izeafest started off with me handing out Crocs and T-shirts and helping out the Izea crew.  I missed the beginning of Ted’s keynote speech, but what I caught was good.  It was about personal branding, and how you need to carefully pick your image. Next, there was 5 minutes of fame with Murray Newlands.  This was about how he has gotten where he is.  I’ll be honest — I could listen to him talk all day long (I’m a sucker for an accent.  Also, on a sidenote, I got to hang out with Murray quite a bit and he’s one of the nicest people I’ve met).  Brian Clark was our next speaker.  His talk was about how design and content really do matter.  Next, we had lunch.  I have to admit that this was some of the best conference food too.  Granted you don’t pick a conference based on what they serve for food, but the food was yummy.  The afternoon started with Sarah Austin and Julia Roy for a session called Screen Gems.  If you watched Twitter during this session, it was brutal.  I basically got out of this session that you need to be 23, have perky boobs, and be cute  if you want to do video.  It was so bad that I actually walked out early and got a cookie.  The sad thing is that I’ve heard how smart these two women are, and they just did a terrible  job (Though I think Julia did see the twitter stream, because she started to try and answer things towards the end).  I actually dubbed this session “2 girls and a video” and sadly everyone knew which session I was referring to.  Next, another 5 minutes of fame with Xshot which is a product I love.  The next session was on SEO and I loved it. Michael Gray and Rae Hoffman were the speakers, and they took sites from the audience to dissect. I was a chicken. There was no way I was submitting my site. Rae gave us ladies a good show of how a woman can give a great presentation. My only complaint is that they did a ton of business sites and no personal blogs. As a mom blogger, am I even shooting for SEO? Sarah Evans was next with Twitter and businesses, and why they need to be on Twitter. We closed out the first day with Lucretia Pruitt, David Binkowski, Chris Heuer, Wendy Piersall, and Warren Whitlock. This, by far, was one of the best panels I’ve ever seen. I could have listened to them all day. They really brought everything down to where most bloggers are right now and gave us some concrete ways to get better.

After the first day, we were able to all meet up at the IceBar and hang. It was very cool. Pun intended. LOL

Some karaoke took place too (no, I didn’t do it).  This is Ted Murphy and Jeremy Wright singing the Backstreet Boys.  The sad thing is that they knew most of the words without watching the screen:

We closed out the night in my friend Heather’s room with a little afterparty:

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Join My Spark E Crew!

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Wall-E was all about changing the world one piece of trash at a time. Well, Spark-E is all about changing the world one blog at a time. I have seen how blogs can truly change things for people, and I want you to be a part of that.

I was one of ten awesome bloggers that were chosen to be part of an exciting adventure for 2009 from Izea.com. As an insider, I am privy to top secret news that only my crew members get to know about, I’ll be giving out swag, and possibly even some meetups! I already know I’ll have some Izeafest tickets to give out!

Why should you sign up with social spark?  It is a great way to make money online. You can pick what things you want to talk about.  Sometimes you are writing about things that you check out online.  Other times you have the product in hand (http://mythoughtsideasandramblings.com/2009/04/09/walking-for-breast-cancer-network-of-strength/).  I got the pedometer and I got paid to write that post! They offer any kind of advertising you’re willing to do on your blogs.  If you just want to add a banner to your blog, you can get paid per click.  You can Twitter ads on your Twitter stream, if someone clicks it, you get paid.  You get to pick what you want to blog about — they don’t pick for you.  Now, you do have to qualify for the opportunity to be able to take it.  That could be living in the US to having certain traffic stats.  It is nowhere near as complicated as I know it must sound.  Now, all opportunities you take with them are “no follow” which means you don’t have to worry about Google taking away your page rank.  Also, all posts will have the disclosure badge you will see on the bottom of that post.  You are able to customize the color of it, so you can match it better to your blog.  Sounds great, right?

If you have a blog and haven’t signed up, here’s what to do:

Go to www.socialspark.com.   Basically, you just fill in the blanks — they will ask for your name, address, brands that you like, etc.  You need to make sure you pick Spark E as the crew you want to join.  Also, make sure you put in your blog information (URL, what your blogs about, etc). Once they accept your blogs, you are on your way to making money.

Lisa, I am already am a member there, but want to join your crew.

Here’s what you need to do if you already are using Social Spark,

1. Log in to your SocialSpark profile.
2. Click on account.
3. Click on Manage Blogger Account.
4. Click on Profile.
5. Jump to question #7 which is “Your IZEA Insiders Membership”
6. Pick Spark E
7. Click Save and Continue.

It’s really that easy.  Anybody who joins my crew (as long as you live in the US – I am mailing these myself and have to keep the cost down), I’ll be sending some swag to you!  After you’ve joined (or if you are a crew member already), email SparkEcrew@gmail.com with your address, and I’ll get it out to you right away.

Hope to hear from you all soon!

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Where in the World is Ted Murphy?

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

For those of you who don’t know, Ted Murphy is the CEO of Izea. He’s a really cool guy (yes, I’ve actually met him several times), and he’s got a cool little thing going on his blog right now. He wants all of his readers to post photos of themselves, so he can see his viewers. However, he has a little twist on it — he wants to be in the picture with you.  He actually gives you his head to print out, so here’s Ted here in Chicago with us:

It looks like he’s done a little cross dressing and grew out his hair.  Bill and Will also join in on the fun:

Will also decide to take Ted’s picture to everybody and kiss us, so Ted you’ve made the rounds here.  :)

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Why I am no longer a PayU2Blog Blogger . . .and maybe why you shouldn’t be either

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

Now, I am not writing this to piss anyone off. I know I research companies before I work for them, and I just want to give you a point of view that you don’t see unless you blog for them. Now, anyone who does blog for them won’t ever post one bad word ever, because if you do, you will be kicked out (yes, I know people who this has happened to). If you happen to mention something that got said on their “private” forum, you’ll get kicked out (but this rule hold true for only certain people because I’ve seen things blogged about and nothing was done to that person).  Before I go on any more, let me tell you my story, what I’ve seen, and why I am not sure I’ll go back even when I will be allowed back in.

I think it was about two years ago when I received an email from PayU2Blog asking me to join them.  I was flattered, and it was a great way to make money off my blogs.  You get paid $5 for a minimum of 60 words.  Those were the rules when I started.  However, they aren’t posted anywhere, and if you don’t have access to the forum, you’d have no idea to all the changes that just seem to magically show up at their whim.  One day you can be following the rules, the next you aren’t.  The latest example of this (besides the reason I just got kicked but I’ll go into that a bit later) is when Izea came out with blog sponsorships.  If you had one on your blog, they (at least sent you an email BEFORE they did it) kicked you out.  Now, no where in their “rules” does it say you can’t have them nor would any new bloggers even have known it.  Actually, I understand the reasoning behind it.  However, there are so many bloggers that left Izea, because they felt PPP was telling them what they could and could not do with their blogs.  Well, this step is one big one towards that for PayU2Blog.

Another issue I have with them has to do with a friend of mine:  Drew.  Now, the upper brass their have a bad habit of calling out who they think are “cheaters”  on the forum.  Drew decided to quit and emailed them to let them know.  This was exactly what he was suppose to do.  He then wrote a post about why he left PayU2Blog.  He then was called out on their “private” forums by PayU2Blog for being a jerk and other things.  He couldn’t even defend himself, since he was locked out of the forums.  Well, low and behold, they found his email.  They then issued a half assed apology on their “private” forums, and actually, sent him a pretty snotty message before they realized their mistake.  I’m sorry, but this whole mess could have been avoided if they didn’t badmouth their bloggers.  They also start witchhunts among their members and I often myself unable to disagree with them on their forums.  You would often find that the members would gang up on the one lone person who disagreed.  I found that long standing members would no longer comment on the forums, because they felt they couldn’t.  Now, I also noticed that my work seemed to go down if I disagreed (now, this could be purely coincidental since it didn’t happen every time I spoke out, but did seem to happen enough that I noticed).  As much as all this annoyed me, I keep working for them, because money is money.  That may make me a bad person, but that money paid for Christmas and a lot of other things for my kids.

Now, what happened to me.  As you all know, I was picked to be an Izea Insider.  I have written a small amount about this.  However, no where to the level of a “personal cheerleader” like I was accused of being.  However, PayU2Blog disagrees and has told me that I cannot work for both Izea or PayU2Blog.  It is one or the other.  I was not the only one told this either – Brett, Corrin, Heather, and Julie were also kicked out.  Now, PayU2Blog seems to think that Izea has it out for them, and we are all spies.  Ummm, no.  We applied for this position never thinking in a million years that this would be considered a conflict of interest.  I consider myself a professional blogger and can separate what I do for each company.  Heck, Izea obviously agrees since they knew we all worked for other companies besides them and have no problems.  The best part of all this — the blogs that are not affiliated with the Izea Insider thing I am doing (like Lisa Reviews) are also kicked out.  Now, I don’t mention PayU2Blog or Izea on that blog, but since I am Izea’s so called personal cheerleader now (which I have done no post to even suggest that) nothing I do is good enough for them anymore.  Now, their advertisers lose out the most with this decision.  This blog got over 300,000 visits in October alone, and I average anywhere from 500 – 1,000 visits a day on here.  Since their advertisers are only after SEO (and maybe some hits from the posts itself), it really shouldn’t matter what my other posts are even about.

Now, what does this “personal cheerleader” get for being an Izea Insider?  I will get a template makeover for this blog (it’s coming and looks awesome!).  I was given an Affiliate Summit Pass and Sears gift card to give away.  I am also being given a $1500 stipend to spend on conferences.  Now, I actually have to pay out of my own pocket first and get reimbursed.  As you can see, this isn’t as glamorous as it was made out to be by PayU2Blog.  I have been nothing but transparent about this, but whatever.

I hope this doesn’t come across as sour grapes — I really do.  I have a lot of friends that still work for PayU2Blog and that I hope this doesn’t affect our friendships.  However, I do feel that you need to hear both sides of a story, and if you are thinking about working for this company, you need to be prepared for what may happen.  You will not hear this from somebody currently working for them, because they will get kicked out if they even mention in a blog post that they are doubting this company.  If you do a google search, you can see all the people who have had problems with them.  I can’t vouch for those posts — only what I personally went through and what people I know have also.  Since, I am over 1,000 words, I’ll end it here even though I could probably go on for another 1000 words).   I just have to say that it isn’t fair to change the rules in the middle and not allow me to work for both companies especially on blogs that have nothing to do with me being an Izea Insider.

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Affiliate Summit West Silver Pass Giveaway!

Friday, December 12th, 2008

This contest is over.  The winner is Content Pig!

Now, as many of you know, I was lucky enough to get picked as an Izea Insider.  One of my perks is that I have access to passes to conferences.  One conference that is coming up is the Affiliate Summit.  It takes place in Las Vegas from January 11 – January 13th, 2009.  I can’t go.  :(   We will be celebrating Madison’s 5th birthday, and I kind of need to be here for that.  However, I want to pass this on to one of my lucky readers, because you are all so great!

This is one of the top conference to go to.  The Affiliate Summit West Silver Pass gives you admission to the Affiliate Meet Market, Exhibit Hall, and the Affiliate Summit Social Network.  The normal cost of the Silver Pass is $349 when ordered online or $449 when you get there.  But yours will be free!

Here’s what you need to do:

Each one of these things will give you one entry:

1. Leave a comment on this post. I want to know why you want this awesome pass!
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. If you don’t know what Stumble Upon is, please read Lori’s post at Blogging Cents. She explains it extremely well.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc.

For 5 additional entries,

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
3. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed
4. Add my badge to your sidebar:

My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings

For 1o (yes, 10! additional entries):

Join my Spark E Facebook page!  Just leave me a link here to your profile on Facebook, so I can verify.

This contest will end December 19 at 8:00 pm CST.  Good luck, and if you want a few more chances to win, check out these fellow Izea Insiders for their contests too:

Julies Journal

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