If you’re one of those folks, like most of us, that have an unexplainable compulsion to click on any link that has anything to do with Twitter, you’re likely acquainted with a unique ad network called Magpie.

I’ve spoken about Magpie a number of times all over the web.  They’re a company, much like Izea, that provokes a very strong love-or-hate reaction from most social media enthusiasts. I don’t plan on going into the ins and outs of sponsored posting.  While I do think that the knee-jerk reaction many have to it is both hypocritical and illogical, I’m more concerned with whether or not a business strategy works in the context of social media rather than whether or not a handful of influential bloggers think I’m a jerk for doing it.

The truth is, though, that Magpie and sponsored post systems like Izea do work and work well, depending on what it is you’re using it for. I’ve worked with both sides of sponsored blogging and sponsored tweets in organizations both A-List and no-name, so I’m pretty equipped to share some wisdom in this department.

The bottom line is that you can buy yourself into the conversation.  The catch is that it can’t look like you’re buying your way into the conversation.

Here’s what doesn’t work…
Recently, Duncan Riley did a set of case studies using Magpie as an in-stream Twitter ad carrier, and the results were somewhat disappointing:

I submitted two campaigns for a total spend of 50 Euros (about US$74): a tweet for a bacon wallet on Amazon, and a tweet for Quantum of Solace on iTunes. I targeted the keywords fun and movies.

The CPM is based on the number of people who potentially read the Tweet. For example one tweet on an account with 1000 followers = seen by 1000 people.

Quantum of Solace had an exposure of 3652 followers for 119 clicks, or a CTR of 3.25%

Bacon Wallet had an exposure of 13022 followers for 344 clicks, or 2.64%

Number of direct sales on both: 0.

Despite this fact, this seems to be what most people use Magpie for.  This is likely due to the fact that Magpie themselves are ham-handedly trying to push their advertisers that direction.  The problem is that this not only isn’t the most effective way to use the service, it’s caused a significant amount of blowback.

What sort of blowback?  Well, having write-up by Marshall Kirkpatrick show up trashing your company is one example of what I’m talking about: “How to Sell Your Soul on Twitter and Who’s Buying.”

Of course, while the thrust of his article was entirely off-base (as noted by both Allen Stern and myself), this type of sponsored posting almost always garners major evil-eyes when it’s not done by an A-List tech blog. Sure, Mashable, TechCrunch and even Marshall’s employer ReadWriteWeb regularly have sponsored posts regularly, but should a small blog or Twitter-stream include one, it’s considered, well, soulless according to Kirkpatrick and his peers.

Along that train of thought, there have been A-List paid posting campaigns that have failed just as miserably as the efforts of affiliate advertisers to convert Twitter ads to sales.  I can’t mention the names of the players involved, but in my work at an A-List tech blog, a company you’ve heard of before paid to have a six-week campaign involving paid videos and paid blog posts be put in place on the site.

Each post would then lead back to a blog on a separate site centered around a conversational topic designed to put focus on the company’s new direction.  As it turned, out, despite spending at least $300,000 on the campaign, the results were dismal (around three or so comments per post on their destination site).

Here’s What Has Worked….
There are several instances that spring to mind when I think of a successful sponsored posting campaign.  One in particular is my experiences with Magpie.  When I was offered a chance to peruse the system, they gave me an account with €30 or so in it, which I used to try two distinct tactics.

My first tactic involved attempts much like Duncan Riley’s attempts.  Whether it be because I chose better keywords, wrote better copy, or chose better products, I achieved a much higher click-through ratio on my affiliate ads.  He averaged 3%, I got well over that, ranging between 8% up to 10%.

My bottom line, though, was very similar.  I didn’t run the campaign long enough or with a big enough budget to definitely declare it a failure, but I recieved exactly zero sales, and didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to throw more money after it to see if it really worked.

Why not? Aside from fiscal reasons, I was seeing significant benefits from a different type of campaign.  Back in October, Sean P. Aune and I had recorded a very topical video podcast, and on a lark, I tried to promote it via Magpie, putting about €15.00 into the campaign.

The results I saw from that included a much greater reach than what I originally paid for.  The tweet that went out was “@rizzn and @seanpaune talk about online video being recession resistant. http://tinyurl.com/5mm7u7”.

Because I used common Twitter naming conventions and syntax, the Twitter was accepted as a sort of content, rather than product pitch.  It received a viral status via re-tweets, which more than doubled the amount of distribution I paid for (somewhere around 30,000 Twitter users).  To top that off, not only did my link recieve an amazing amount of traffic, both Sean and I found that our follower count jumped significantly, and most visitors clicked through to play the video in question as well.

I stumbled into these results, but I think they’re indicative of the characteristics of most successful sponsored posting campaigns.

Three Important Aspects of Your Sponsored Post Campaign
Obviously, it’s best to let your product, service or content speak for itself and rise in attention organically, but whether you’re promoting it through personal networking, or letting your dollars do the work for you, Lesson one is that you’re always going to have better success with well composed content than raw pitching of a product.

Just as important, Lesson two is that it’s a good idea to intimately understand the culture and protocol of a media type before you try to buy your way into it. Sometimes, particularly when you’re representing a mainstream brand and you’re new to a service, that isn’t possible.  That’s why it’s important to find a trusted ambassador to guide you into that world either in education or promotion.

A whole post could be written on the topic of selecting that ambassador, but the gist and rule of thumb is to find those with high levels of engagement, not follower counts alone.  Those who have messages that resonate with their followers matter more than auto-follow bots with huge follow counts.

Lastly, buying your way into the campaign doesn’t mean you sit back and do nothing. Be prepared to meet and greet and interact with all the new folks. The goal of ‘buying your way into the conversation’ shouldn’t be instant sales, it should be long term followers. 

It’s just like those I talk to who are building an online video strategy.  So many folks are concerned with how many eyeballs they’re going to get on their web videos, rather than what they should be concerned about, which is how they’re going to get channel followers or podcast subscribers – their locked in long term audience.