Hey All! I hope you rested up after that long post I created yesterday, maybe did some carbo-loading… Do people even do that anymore with the whole Atkins/South Beach diet things? Or are those not cool anymore? Anyway, back to the real reason I’m doing this post – we need to go over the remainder of Sponsored Post Creation in SocialSpark. Be prepared, this post might be long as well because there is still a ton of information we need to go over, so if you need a snack or coffee or something, you might want to take a break now and get that… I’ll be here when you get back…
Okay, now where did we leave off yesterday? If I remember right we got all the way through Step 3: Targeting. So it looks like we’re on to Step 4: Set Pricing…
Pricing is a little tricky in SocialSpark at first glance, but if you reference Carri’s post from a few days ago, ‘Dynamic Pricing’, she goes over it quite nicely and Tina will be posting much more in depth for the Advertiser’s in a few days. Because of this I won’t be redundant, I’ll just tell you to keep an eye out for Tina’s post as she’ll be able to walk you step by step through the pricing – you know, she’s got a college degree in Finance so she must understand money and financial stuff somewhat – right?! Well, hopefully 😉
Now we can move on…
Step 5: Disclosure and Tracking Links
In SocialSpark we require all posts to have a Disclosure Badge so the readers know these posts are sponsored, so therefore Step 5 is very important!
Number 1 basically goes over the Disclosure Badge itself; who the post is sponsored by (YOU!) and what you would like the Badge to link to (YOUR SITE!). The last thing in this section is the BubbleAd you can require for an extra $5.00. For those of you that don’t know what a BubbleAd looks like here you go:
As you see, if you hover your cursor over the Disclosure Badge another AdBubble will pop-up with all sorts of information and even some additional links!!
Number 2 and 3 in Step 5 work together like peanut butter and jelly (can you eat that on the Atkins diet?? Sorry…) – Number 2 asks if you are going to require the bloggers to include a link in their posts, while Number 3 asks you what that required link and anchor text are. In SocialSpark you can use up to 10 different links and anchor text. Once you add a link click the ‘Add link’ button if you would like to add more links/anchor text.
** Please note, if you are not requiring the bloggers to include a link you do not have to fill in Number 3.
Look at that – we’re already done with Step 5 – click ‘Save and Continue’ and let’s keep going! 🙂
Step 6: Promote
This Step is all about promoting your Sponsored Post Opp within SocialSpark. Let’s go through each section individually to make this part easier…
1.) Add an image: You can upload an image here that will be displayed throughout the Marketplace – this is FREE, yes FREE, for Sponsored Post Opps. Again, this image can only be a JPEG, PNG, or TIFF and can be no bigger than 2MB.
2.) Listing Upgrades: You can have your Opp be listed either with bold font or highlighted in the Marketplace listing.
3.) Feature Upgrades: This is REALLY cool!! You can pay a little extra and have your Opp as the ‘Featured Opp’ on the Marketplace Homepage!
4.) Search Tags: Here is where you would enter relevant search tags so if someone searches keywords in the Marketplace they will come across this Opp. For example, if we’re creating a Sponsored Post Opp about toothpaste we could use Search Tags like ‘toothpaste’, ‘teeth’, ‘dentist’, etc. (Be sure to separate each of your Search Tags with a comma.)
5.) Channel: You can also search Opps by channels to help you find more of a niche Opp. This is where you would put what channels you would like your Opp to appear on – you can choose up to 2 and should be relevant to what your Opp is about. The channels in SocialSpark include:
Auto, Charity, Entertainment, Family, Finance, Men’s Interest, Real Estate, Shopping, Small Business, Technology, Travel, Women’s Interest
Okay, let’s do another example here – If I created an Opp about the newest Children’s 5-Speed, Electronic Toothbrush (I’m not sure why I’m hung up on dental hygiene today), what channels would I choose? Yup, maybe family and technology… you could even make a case as to why I could put it in shopping. Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect, just another avenue of searching for your Opp in the Marketplace!
Can you believe it?!? We’re on the last Step!!!
Step 7: Review and Launch
This page is a summary of everything you have done in the last 6 Steps. It will go over just about every decision you made as well as your Opportunity Charge Specifics (a breakdown of how much the Opp costs) and Payment Information (which credit card on file you would like to charge for this Opp). This is a great page to make sure you have everything you want done for the Opp. Read over it carefully and make sure you have done EXACTLY what you intended to do because remember, you CANNOT EDIT A LIVE OPP!!!!!
All that’s left to do is click ‘Submit for Launch’ and it’s off to be manually approved by a member of our awesome Customer Love team.
If your Sponsored Post Opp is approved it is then sent out live to the bloggers in the Marketplace, or if something is not quite right it will not be sent live and you will receive a message in your message center letting you know what’s wrong with the Opp. This message will also include how to go back into your account and make the edit so it can be approved and sent out to the bloggers! 🙂
See, like I said yesterday, easy right? Well remember if you ever come to a step you’re not quite sure about you should look for the question marks you can click on to give you more information.
Also, like Karen mentioned in her post, you can always go to the ‘Help’ tab and submit a help ticket to Customer Love and we will be able to help you in creation!
I hope this gives you guys some more information on Sponsored Post Opp Creation in SocialSpark. Remember, if you ever need help in creating an Opp, Tina and I are always here to help – you can reach us by sending an email to accountmgmt [at] izea [dot com] and we’d be more than happy to help! Good Luck!!!
