1. You’ve been part of the IZEA Community for some time. What originally drew you here? After a year of blogging and building up my social media profile, I was confident that IZEA was a great place for me. Several people that I respect in this space were already singing the praises of the community, so I decided it was time to jump in and try it for myself. I’ve never looked back!

2. Why Fashion? I have always been very passionate about fashion as a form of personal expression and as an art form. However, I think that most women are very intimidated by fashion, trends, and trying to figure out where it is that they fit. My goal in writing about Fashion was to take away the intimidation factor and make it accessible for every woman regardless of her size, shape, or budget.

3. What inspires you to blog? The idea that I might be able to help a woman whom I don’t even know to feel confident and comfortable in her own skin is what keeps me motivated from day to day. I also really enjoy writing and sharing information with others – I was always the know-it-all!

4. What’s been your favorite SocialSpark (original platform) campaign? My favorite campaign by far has been the one that I did with Talbots – their Red Chair Confessions campaign was fun and young – I loved being a part of it and my readers really got into it!

5. What are you most looking forward to about SocialSpark 2.0? I’m most excited about the direct publishing with 2.0! I love that Sponsored Tweets automatically publish once they are approved, so I’m really excited that Social Spark is adopting a similar method. I feel it will make things much easier on publishers and advertisers alike!

6. Say something in French (hey…you brag about it in your Twitter bio)!

“Regardez là-bas! Il ya un chat vert dans la piscine!”

Ha! Stick that in your Google translator. ☺

7. Complete this thought: If I could I would ______. Learn to fly.

8. My favorite word right now is ______. Loquacious. (It suits me perfectly!)

9. You attend many industry events. What is the most valuable thing you get out of doing so? The relationships that I have developed through attending these events are incredibly powerful and are by far my most valuable takeaway. I have met some of the most brilliant people that our industry has to offer, and am honored to call many of them friends and colleagues. The genuine friendships and network of support is absolutely priceless in my day-to-day life and business.

10. What’s one word of advice you’d give to bloggers who are looking to increase the quality of their content? I think the biggest key to creating quality content is to be yourself in your writing. Don’t stress over perfect syntax and grammar and let your personality shine through. A little humor never hurts, either.

You can keep-up with Erika by reading her blog, Chic Shopper Chick.

All answers will be given in tweet form – in 140 characters or less!

1. What originally attracted you to Sponsored Tweets? Despite the controversy, it made sense that when given an opportunity to be transparent about a paid placement, everybody would win.

2. What has been one of your favorite campaigns in which to participate? I can’t recall a specific campaign, but I always appreciated those which have given my own community direct value for looking.

3. What do you love most about Twitter? It’s a perfect playmate for those of us who have attention deficit!

4. Finish this: Without Twitter I would ____. “continue to do what I do… elsewhere… just like I did before Twitter existed.”

5. How do you get creative with your Tweets? I write them with my pinky finger while standing on my head.

6. What do you do to market yourself, and gain new Followers? I don’t do anything to market myself other than just being myself.

7. Any advice to other Tweeters on how to get more Sponsored Tweets Opportunities? Tweet every tweet as though it was your last.

8. A Tweet a Day ____. “keeps the MySpace away.”

9. What’s your favorite bird (tweet, tweet!)? The Blue-Footed Booby. Yes, it’s a real bird.

Follow Chris’s Tweets at @ChrisPirillo.

1. Why do you WeReward? I use WeReward for a couple reasons. 1) I have found it’s a great way to meet and connect with new people. “Oh you eat there too? That’s right by my house! I eat there all the time. We should grab a bite to eat and chat one day.” It’s a great conversation starter. 2) I have to eat anyway, so why not get paid to check-in at the places I’m already going to? I’m not going out of my way to do any of this. I was already using Foursquare to share the places visit with my social networks, but foursquare wasn’t paying me. Sure, there are benefits to holding mayorships, but you can link your WeReward account to your Foursquare account and reap the benefits from both platforms.

2. What device do you claim rewards from? iPhone.

3. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear WeReward? Ted Murphy.

4. Where have you checked-in the most? Chick-fil-a, Chipotle and Starbucks.

5. What’s been your favorite WeReward reward claim so far? My favorite WeReward claim was the Taco Bell 500 point offer (see claim photo below, with the taco shoved in my mouth!). 500pts = 5 bucks. That buys lunch! What beats that?!

6. What other mobile social applications do you actively use? Okay, you ready? There’s a lot of ‘em… HootSuite, seeitgolf.com, Tweetmic, Tweetdeck, Twitvid, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, YouTube, iSwing, UStream Broadcaster and Skype. Dailybooth and Myspace are on my phone, but never get used.

7. Sky’s the limit – what company would you love to see using WeReward? My local watering hole. I’m sure everyone would like to be able to check-in at their favorite bar. It’d be easy to structure “tasks”, fun for users and a great way to connect/network. It’d be a great tool for marketing and advertising.

8. Tell one thing about yourself nobody knows. I used to be a competitive dancer in a professional dance company then a full-time actor before I gave it all up to focus on golf.

9. If Chops were to have a girlfriend, what would you name her? Babe. Duh.

10. Most importantly, what’s your favorite way to eat bacon? “The Baconcado” is the best way to eat bacon. Google it. The only thing better is the name of the site that the recipe is on: Bacon Jew.

11. Finish this: Bacon makes me ____. Giddy.

John can most often be found on Twitter and Facebook.

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

We’ve partnered with this blogging event and are offering you–our Community–the opportunity to join us in Las Vegas. Wanna hear about your chance to go to BlogWorld Expo this coming October?

So here’s the deal:

This year the BlogWorld event moves to the amazing Mandalay Bay Las Vegas hotel, located directly on the Las Vegas Strip, and we have 10 Full Access* passes to give away! What does a Full Access Pass get you, you ask?

• Social Media Business Summit sessions on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
• Full access to all show events and all conference sessions on all three (3) event days
• Special Thursday-only Social Media Business Summit Keynotes
• Thursday Partner Programs
• The Exclusive Thursday Networking Luncheon
• FULL ACCESS BREAK AREA (which includes lunch & snacks on all three days)

Dates of the event are October 14th through the 16th.

Sooooo…how do you get yours? Simply create a blog post telling us why you should be the recipient of one of these passes, leave the link to the post in the comments section here, and we’ll select the winners. Keep in mind the more creative you are the more likely you’ll catch our eye (so feel free to imitate the IZEA Team, famous bloggers or Tweeters, etc.). Videos, fun photos, and cookies–well, any sort of baked goods, actually–are encouraged; nudity, however, is not! The deadline for submission is next Thursday (9/9), 6pm EDT.

Be forewarned, though, when hanging out with the IZEA Crew there’s a strong possibility you might end-up in a photo like this:

See you in Vegas!

* NOTE: These are for passes only. Open to all Publishers but be aware each winner is responsible for their own travel to Las Vegas as well as lodging/hotel accommodations.

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

We’ve had a handful of new folks join the IZEA Team recently, and they expressed interest in joining-up with the Committee. So we Cool Kids saw this as an opportunity to see just how creative these new Peeps could be, by assigning them a list of tasks. Friday afternoon we received this:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

The good news? We accepted all of them into the Cool Kids Committee! We’d pretty much be jerks if we didn’t….

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

Did You Know: Social Media – Watch more Funny Videos

This is one of the things to stuck with me:

“So what used to fit in a building
now fits in your pocket,
what fits in your pocket now
will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years.” – Ray Kurzweil

Quite frankly, I’d be surprised if it even takes 25 years….

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

Our very own Ted Murphy was recently interviewed by Janet Hinz for her “Critical Thinking in the Real World” podcast. Topic of interest was Sponsored Tweets, of which Janet is definitely a big fan.

If you’d like to listen to the interview click here. You can then listen to the podcast directly from the site or download it from iTunes. To listen directly on the site simply look for the “Recent Shows” section on the righthand side of the site, then select the show from August 4th. Ted’s interview is about 22 minutes in. To listen on iTunes click on “View All Podcasts” and then select the appropriate one.

If you need a little help:



Huge thanks to Janet for this opportunity, and for supporting Sponsored Tweets!

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

Please call 1.866.514.1680×4 to claim your bonus.

Credits have no cash value. Cannot be combined with any other offer.

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

August 17, 2010 – Orlando, FL – WeReward (http://www.wereward.com), a mobile incentive platform that pays consumers cash for the actions they take in the real world, officially unveiled its Certified Local Partner Program today. The program provides qualified individuals and companies the right to resell WeReward to businesses in their local communities under a revenue sharing arrangement. Partners can apply for the zip code that will define their geographic boundary starting today.

“Imagine if you were one of the first people with the foresight to franchise a McDonald’s in the 1940s,” said Ted Murphy, CEO of IZEA, WeReward’s parent company. “The Certified Local Partner Program offers a 21st Century version of the same opportunity for Internet-savvy entrepreneurs and companies in the exploding social media and mobile marketing spaces.”

Exploding is an understatement. eMarketer projects that 85.5 million U.S. mobile users will access the web from mobile devices in 2010, a number that will exceed 142 million by 2014. Similarly, ComScore identifies social networking as the fastest growing category of mobile applications by usage, with 240 percent growth between April 2009 and April 2010. WeReward resides at the intersection of the mobile and social realm, offering an incentive layer that provides additional value to consumers.

WeReward enables businesses to create and manage their own mobile incentive program from an integrated online platform. Businesses create rewards that act as cash back to customers. Customers, in turn, claim the rewards by taking photos of themselves at a business location and following provided instructions such as “Take a picture of you and your food at Mel’s Diner”. Rewards are designed to drive awareness, reward purchases and create customer loyalty.

WeReward launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in late May to a crowd of more than 1,000 tech leaders, journalists and venture capitalists. Eleven weeks later, WeReward has surpassed 100,000 downloads with users claiming rewards in every major U.S. market. Smart phone users can claim rewards at more than 15 million businesses nationwide including restaurants, bars, movie theaters, hotels and other retail establishments.

”You can’t purchase the rights to resell Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter or Yelp in a given geography, Murphy said. “WeReward is the first company in its space to open up its network. Our model gives local independent entrepreneurs and companies the opportunity to benefit from our growth and profit from their effort. Now is the chance for forward-thinking entrepreneurs to grab a piece of a multi-billion dollar pie,” he continued. With the rollout of this partner program, we are on a mission to share WeReward with every business owner in the country.”

Interested agencies and potential partners can visit www.wereward.com/partners to apply.

The WeReward mobile application is currently available for Apple iPhone and Android devices. A Blackberry version of the application will be released soon. Users can download the application at http://www.wereward.com

ABOUT IZEA

IZEA is a world leader in social media sponsorship, operating multiple marketplaces such as WeReward, SponsoredTweets, and SocialSpark. Our mission is to empower everyone to value and exchange content, creativity and influence. IZEA is venture funded by Inflexion Partners, Village Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and DFJ Gotham Ventures. Advertisers, publishers and partners can learn more at http://www.IZEA.com

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

Rambler’s Way Farm is a family business creating soft, comfortable next-to-skin worsted wool apparel entirely on American soil. At Rambler’s Way, they live their values at work: creativity in what they do; continuous improvement; promoting sustainability, well-being, and enjoyment by bringing together individual talents towards a common goal of customer satisfaction.

You may not realize it, but Rambler’s Way comes from the Founders of Tom’s of Maine. Currently running a campaign with us, they have been extremely open to trusting us and our ideas, while still staying true to their core values and beliefs. Our Publishers have been very receptive to this campaign and seem excited to learn more about this new wool! When you have a few minutes (if you haven’t participated in the campaign), take a look around RamblersWay.com and experience their “next-to-skin” softness. It really is so thin!

Postie of the Month

The Postie we’d like to recognize for the month of July is Keith Lunt. Keith is extremely engaged in our Community and always helpful. He is actually both an Advertiser and a Blogger in PayPerPost (wow…must really like that platform!).

You can find out a little more about Keith here:

• His blog http://www.howtostartmyblog.com/ helps people blog. (It’s really a great resource for beginners…as well as some “reminders” for us old pros.

• His Sponsored Posts appear on http://www.janric.co.uk/blog/.

Congrats to both Rambler’s Way Farm and Keith, and thanks for continuing to support the IZEA Community!

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing

Recently, however, something’s got me thinking: when is sharing too much? I’ve stumbled across several blog posts and Tweets in a short period of time, from or talking about visits to the doctor’s office, dentist, some type of surgery, childbirth, etc. All included photos, mind you (thankfully no video!). Do we really want to know about the intimate details of these personal experiences, or even more…do we care?

Any thoughts on this? What are you willing to share? Seen any posts or Tweets similar to the ones I’m speaking of? And is it “too much”?

This is a post from: IZEA : Social Media Marketing