Last month we ran a contest challenging Tweeters to refer another Tweeter with the most Followers, with a prize of $1,000 attached (for both the referrer and the referral). Well, the contest has ended and we have to give huge shout-outs to our winners: @juanalvarado and @DiyanaAlcheva. Juan referred Diyana to the Sponsored Tweets platform; Diyana currently has 103k Followers. Woah!

Congrats to Juan & Diyana for winning this contest! Stay tuned for future contests….

We’re thrilled to be one of the sponsors for the upcoming Twestival Tweetup in San Francisco. If you’re not familiar, there are actually Twestivals happening concurrently all across the US. Think Tweetup with a cause! Social media for social good!

If you’re in the Bay Area, are at least 21-years-old (sorry, this is required by the venue where the event will be taking place), and are available on the evening of March 25th, you should definitely consider checking-out this event. In addition to being a Tweetup for a good cause it will certainly be a fantastic networking opportunity – there are already 125 guests confirmed via the event’s Fanbook Page.

Location:

Horizon Lounge
498 Broadway Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

The Tweetup is from 6:00pm-11:00pm. You can get more information and purchase tickets here. If you end-up attending the event please be sure and take lots of photos so we can share them here on the blog.

The Top Tweeter Challenge is coming down to the final hours. The current leader has refered someone with 98.6k followers. If you refer someone with more followers than that both you and the person you refer could win $1k. Check out the contest for the full details.

There’s generally a SponsoredTweets release every week or two, but it’s been a while since we had a release quite this big. If you’re an advertiser or a tweeter, you’ll want to check out these changes. The focus for this release is around adding more value for advertisers and opening up more information to Tweeters.

Advertiser Updates!

The bulk of the changes for this release are on the advertiser side. We added a lot more bang for your buck by filtering out invalid clicks using ClickForensics. Click Forensics is the industry leader in scoring, auditing, and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community. The way it works is simple — every click on a link from one of your opps will go through ClickForensics, and unless it’s considered valid it won’t affect the CPC of your opportunity. This is the same system that SocialSpark uses to verify traffic. We’ll still retweet it if the offer doesn’t meet a CPC of under $1.50 and they have ClickWatch enabled. This assures that duplicate clicks, click farm clicks, bot/spider clicks and otherwise invalid clicks aren’t counted. Since we’re tracking valid clicks on our side, we cut bit.ly out the picture, and we’re now shortening links using our in house shortener – spn.tw.

Dashboard Changes

The two notable changes are pointed out below. The first is the new notification settings that Tweeters already have. In addition though, Advertisers can now get a daily email summary of all activity on their account — or choose to receive no notifications.

Benching

We also added Benching! We actually added this a week ago, but since we’re sharing we thought we’d let you know. The concept behind benching is simple: an Advertiser has multiple opportunities with slightly different text and wants to make only one offer to each tweeter. Chances are the Advertiser doesn’t want to make offers to the same Tweeter for very similar opportunities. So the advertiser just needs to set their Bench length to a few days, and it’ll automatically hide any tweeters who they’ve made offers to in that many days. You can change this bench period at anytime and it’ll hide/show tweeters again. It’s that simple!

Reporting

When viewing a campaign, advertisers now get a great high level overview of their clicks. This will detail when the clicks happened, how many were considered invalid and more. Invalid clicks won’t show up on the graph, and won’t count towards the total clicks for this opportunity. Advertisers can even drill down and see the referrer for clicks on their offers.

Tweeter Updates!

When Tweeters login to SponsoredTweets they’re greeted with their opps list as usual. Above it though, we’ve added a breakdown of the money you’ve made in SponsoredTweets so far. This includes anything you’ve made by tweeting, referring people — and even a total that you could’ve made if you’d taken more opps offered your way.

There’s a lot of bug fixes and tuning going on under the hood for this release as well, but that’s the bulk of what you’ll see different when you use SponsoredTweets today. Hope you’ll enjoy this release!

Wanted to share some photos* from the social media meetup we sponsored last week in Richmond, Virginia. We were sent some great pics – looks like a great turnout, and everyone was having a good time! If you were one of the attendees we’d love to hear from you, about the event.

Special shout-out to @KSiddal for working with Sponsored Tweets on this event.If you have a Tweetup/Social Media Meetup planned in your area, or are thinking about hosting an event, and would be interested in having Sponsored Tweets sponsor it, click here to find out how.

* Photos courtesy of Will Weaver.

In the coming week we will be moving Sponsored Tweets click tracking from bit.ly to a new internal url shortener / click tracking service. The move is designed to provide a greater level of tracking and accuracy for our advertisers. Shortened urls will now utilize spn.tw instead of bit.ly and all clicks will be validated by Click Forensics. Click Forensics is the industry leader in scoring, auditing, and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community.

Click Forensics software will more accurately discard repeat clicks, bots, click farms and other methods that can be utilized to inflate click counts. While Sponsored Tweets does not charge on a CPC basis at this time it is important to us to provide advertisers with the most reliable data as possible.

Sponsored Tweets is sponsoring a social media Tweetup later this week, in Richmond. If you’re in the Richmond/DC Metropolitan area you and have no plans this Thursday night you should definitely attend this event. No doubt you’ll meet some new Twitter/Social Media Peeps. And who knows…perhaps you’ll learn something!

Details:

Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 8:30pm
Location: Richmond Centerstage – The Rhythm Hall
Street: 600 East Grace Street

You can get more information and register by clicking here.

If you end-up attending be sure to take lots of photos so you can share them with us. We’ll post them here on the blog for all to see!

Interested in having us sponsor one of your upcoming Tweetups? All you have to do is set up an event in Facebook, and have 50 confirmed attendees. You can get details and apply here.

Win $1000 each for you and a twitter friend

We have had a number of people request a contest that rewards based on the quality, not volume of people that they refer. For all those people we now have a contest just for you. Now through the end of the month if you refer a person with a lot of followers you may just win $1,000 for you and $1,000 for the person you referred!

Have a good friend who is a celeb, rock star, or twitter personality? Now is the time to get them signed up! Not only will both of you make more money… you could win $1,000 each just for being well followed!

The Challenge

1. Click the Retweet button at the top of this page.

2. Use your referral link inside SponsoredTweets to sign up new Tweeters to the system. You can use the standard tweet, display ads or get creative and make something new. If you are a developer you may use the SponsoredTweets API.

• The challenge starts today and ends February 28th, 2010.
• The person who refers the one individual tweeter with the most followers during the contest period will win $1,000 for themselves and $1,000 for the person that they refer.
• Referrals prior to today do not count. Everybody starts fresh!
• Valid to U.S. Residents 18 years of age and older only. Void where prohibited by law.
• Do not use Twitter bot spamming (or any spamming for that matter) to drive registrations. Doing so will make you ineligible, you will be reported to Twitter and your SponsoredTweets account will be suspended.

You can view the official rules here.

Helpful Hint

Use your “possible referees” tab to see people that follow you that have lots of followers. The people under thist tab have not signed up for Sponsored Tweets yet.

Official Rules

Eligibility: No purchase is necessary to enter or claim prize. Top Tweeter Challenge (the “Contest”) is open to anyone who (i) is a legal U.S. resident, and (ii) is at least eighteen (18) years of age. Employees of IZEA, Inc. (“Sponsor”), and their respective parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, advertising agencies, and the families and persons living in the same household as such employees, are not eligible to participate. The Contest is subject to all federal, state, and local laws. Void where prohibited or restricted by law or regulations.

How To Enter:

(1) Click the ReTweet button at the top of Top Tweeter page.

(2) Use your referral link or API to sign up new Sponsored Tweets users under your account. Referral Twitter accounts must be over 120 days old by contest end in order to be considered valid. The Contest begins at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (“EST”) on February 8, 2009 and ends at 11:59 p.m. EST on February 28, 2010 (the “Contest Period”).

Selection Of Winners: At the end of the Contest Period one (1) entrant will be selected by the Sponsor based on the having referred the one (1) Tweeter with the most individual followers during the contest. The odds of winning depend upon the number of people participating.

The winner will be notified by email on or about three (3) days after the applicable weekly entry period ends. The decisions of the Sponsor are final and binding on all matters relating to the Contest. All winners will be required to sign and return to Sponsor an affidavit of eligibility and liability/publicity release within fourteen (14) days of the date of winning notification; otherwise the prize will be forfeited, and a new winner will be randomly selected.

Prizes (1): Winner will receive $1,000.00 for themselves and $1,000.00 for the person they referred who helped them win the contest.

Total ARV of all prizes: $2,000.00

All federal, state, and local taxes, and all other expenses not expressly listed above are the sole responsibility of the winners.

Release of Liability: By participating, you release Sponsor and their subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, employees, directors, agents, advertising agencies, and all other associated with the development and execution of this Contest, from any and against any and all injury, loss or damage caused or claimed to be caused by your participation in the Contest and/or the acceptance, awarding, receipt, use and/or misuse of the prize, and you agree that these entities are in no matter responsible for any warranty, representation, or guarantee, expressed or implied, in fact or in law, relating to the Contest and/or the awarding of any prize. Notwithstanding the foregoing, in the event that the preceding release is determined by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or void for any reason, entrant agrees that, by entering the Contest, (i) any and all disputes, claims, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with the Contest, or any prizes awarded, shall be resolved individually without resort to any form of class action; (ii) any claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering the Contest, but in no event attorney’s fees; and (iii) under no circumstances will any entrant be permitted to obtain any award for, and entrant hereby waives all rights to claim, punitive, incidental or consequential damages and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased and any other damages, other than damages for actual out-of-pocket expenses.

Additional Rules: Entrant agrees to hold harmless Sponsor, its officers, directors, employees, divisions, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and promotional agencies, from any claim by any third party relating to any rights. By participating in the Contest, entrant agrees to be bound by these Official Rules, including all eligibility requirements and all decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding in all matters relating to the Contest. Sponsor is not responsible for: (i) lost, late, misdirected, damaged, garbled or illegible entries/registrations; (ii) error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operations or transmission, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to or alterations of entry/registration materials, or for technical, network, telephone equipment, electronic, computer, hardware or software malfunctions of any kind, or inaccurate transmission of or failure to receive entry information by Sponsor on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any web site or any combination thereof; or (iii) any injury or damage to entrant’s or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participating in the Contest. Sponsor reserves the right to: (i) permanently disqualify from any contest it sponsors any person it believes has intentionally violated these official rules; and (ii) suspend, modify or terminate the Contest if Sponsor believes, in its sole discretion, that malfunction, error, disruption or damage is impairing or will impair the administration, security, fairness, integrity of the Contest. If Contest is terminated before the end date, Sponsor will determine the winner from all eligible entries received as of the termination date. Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any unauthorized entries, including, without limitation, multiple entries from the same person. Entering the Contest constitutes permission to use the name, voice, photo, and likeness of the winner for advertising and publicity purposes, without further compensation.

LEGAL WARNING: ANY ATTEMPT BY AN INDIVIDUAL, WHETHER OR NOT AN ENTRANT, TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE, DESTROY, TAMPER OR VANDALIZE THIS WEB SITE OR INTERFERE WITH THE OPERATION OF THE CONTEST, IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS AND SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES AND DILIGENTLY PURSUE ALL REMEDIES AGAINST ANY SUCH INDIVIDUAL TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

Winner’s Name: For names of winners, please send a self-addressed stamped envelope, (postage not required for Vermont residents) to: 150 N. Orange Avenue, Suite 412, Orlando, Florida 32801.

You’ve worked.
You’ve waited.
You’ve wondered.

And now the time has come to reveal the winner of our recent MegaMac Challenge. As a refresher, the winning individual is that who has the most valid new Tweeter referrals during the contest period (12/2/09-1/31/10).

Huge congratulations to ShoeMoney®, who will receive the following awesome prizes:

• MacBook Air
• 27-Inch Quad-Core iMac
• Apple TV
• Time Capsule
• iWork
• iPod nano
  

Stay tuned here and on Twitter for future contests and promotions and thanks to all who jumped-in and took part in this MegaMac Challenge.