This post has now been updated with an official response from Tweetmeme – the features have now been added to the development timeline.

The Tweetmeme site is a useful content source, but this article is mainly about the Tweetmeme buttons.

Adding something to your blog, especially something that can encourage viral behavior and add social proof is highly beneficial, and doing it correctly, without asking for passwords offers huge advantages.

Twitter is also a medium that is marketing content tollerant, as long as the people following you are marketers, unlike Digg, Reddit, and to a lesser extent Stumbleupon. 

Thus I have spent some time delving into the code and API for Tweetmeme and the existing WordPress plugin. It has just been updated, thus if you download the Tweetmeme plugin, it will be the latest version.

Important New Features

• Cleaned up cookie use a little, but it would be better if they set a cookie based on an action, rather than a display.
  The original RFC for cookies states that browser support for cookies should be a minimum of:-    
  • 300 cookies in total
  • 20 cookies per domain
  • 4095 bytes per cookie

  To be perfectly honest, I don’t want all those cookies, whether they are 1st party or 3rd party.

• Ability to brand the retweets with @andybeard etc, though you still get “via @tweetmeme” at the end
• The button is removed from excerpts using a filter on get_the_excerpt() – more on that to follow

However essential features of Tweetmeme and Tweetmeme Button are missing if it is going to be used by serious marketers.

Whilst I am not a huge fan of the @tweetmeme at the end of button tweets, it is something that users can just delete. However I have some additional problems / requirements / feature requests

1. The latest incarnation of Tweetmeme prevents the button, as standard, appearing on custom excerpts.

I can understand this from a user perspective:-

• Most bloggers are using automatic generated excerpts that might include the button javascript
• This appears ugly on the page, and is useless if they are also using that for their page descriptions

However some people use custom excerpts and custom meta descriptions, and like displaying tweet buttons on their front page without adding custom filters to functions.php or hacking theme files. Can the options be expanded with a separate set for use on the_excerpt? I can also see people wanting to use different buttons on full page, excerpt and rss, and only have one button on the_excerpt, but top/bottom on both feeds and posts.

2. The Headlines Used

Currently there is no way to define the text that is being used within a tweet – the text used is the Title tag from the header of a page. Many blogs use various titles for different purposes

• In the header for SEO
• For the title of a post
• Various navigation elements
• Custom titles for RSS feeds
• Calls to action for Social Media
• Calls to action for Twitter, or what Tim wrote about a few months ago, Social Bites

I really need to be able to define the text dynamically for each button display.

3. The Links Used

Tweetmeme like tracking things. Guess what? So do I…

I don’t so much care about branding of the final tweet links – it would be a bonus, but I need to be able to track the way I want to track.

• Within my short URL software
• Google Analytics for various goals
• Possibly for use with affiliates

I understand that Tweetmeme need the permalink to associate with tweets, but couldn’t I provide that, in addition to the link actually used to generate links? You might end up generating a lot more short links, but you would know in advance, without having to check headers, that all those links are to the same URL.

4. My Tweeps Like To Track Too

As a person who might occasionally click on Tweetmeme buttons, there is one fatal flaw.

If I use my own link shortener, I can track the response rate. I like knowing which topics and headlines generate a response from my audience. If something proves to be popular, maybe I will repeat it for people in a different timezone.

Tweetmeem Buttons remove my ability to test the popularity of the content I post.

The solution is actually fairly simple:-

The tweetmeme buttons are quite happy to write cookies all over a users system, why not read just one cookie, a unique user ID for Tweetmeme as well. The default user ID would identify which URL shortener they prefer, and their API ID. If you want to be extra secure, you could store both of these in a cookie on the user’s computer, rather than store them yourself. Links would ultimately go through the following redirects

• Tweetmeme Bit.ly
• Tweep (any)
• Publisher Short (any)
• Permalink + parameters
• Permalink

That is a lot of redirects, it might slow things down a little, and Googlebot might not like so many jumps, but ultimately this provides a better experience for users, and for once any SEO factors aren’t important – Google will have to cope. The 2 URLs to include with the javascript would be

• Permalink
• (optional) Publisher Short (any) / Permalink+Parameters

5. Split-testing

The observant among you would also notice that with all these parameters being set with each page load, it would be possible to split-test response to some degree. This level of functionality would add real value, and might even be looked on as a useful, modestly priced, premium feature – $10 per month/site  or $30 per month/site unlimited? For tweeps it would have to be free.

Thus I think Tweetmeme is a great idea, but to be turned into something that not only remains on my blog, but which I might even be willing to pay for, it needs significantly more flexibility.

Tweetmeme could be turned into a masterful, measurable viral marketing tool, with just a few tweaks.

Update: Tweetmeme Marketing Features Coming

Sarah from Tweetmeme has just left this message in the comments area

Hi Andy,

Your suggestions have been added to our todo list here in the office so do look out for the new features you’ve requested. They will take us a while to do but they are coming.

We’re using your post as our guidance, and if you are up for it when we have something to show, would you be up for looking over it and seeing if there’s anything we’re missing? We would like to get it right and have a really strong offering for marketing experts so feedback and working closely with experts like yourself is essential really.

Lets keep the conversations going between us and if you drop me an e-mail then I’ll make sure you are on our early adopter program :)

Many thanks
Sarah

I think this is a superb response and I want to thank Sarah, Nick and the rest of the Fav.or.it team for accepting my challenging post “head-on”.

Whilst they only required me to write 100 words, and they have no requirement to give either a positive or negative review, as always I am going to go into things with as much depth as I can, because that is the kind of content I write, and that will never change whether I am paid to do a review, include an affiliate link or not.

In fact here is the “contract” I just accepted to review their service:-

Ok lets look at what you see here :-

• Rating – I will show you how that works later
• Bid Price – that is the price I decided to set myself for reviews, though as you will see later there are methods to negotiate prices for reviews to have a win/win situation
• You Get $98 – yep that is one of the nice parts, a 65% share of the earnings.
• Min Words 100 – I am ignoring that, and I am pretty sure the advertiser knew I would anyway, so I take that as an indication they want me to write a normal review… go to town as always. If they set a maximum I would actually be upset and would never accept it.
• Status / Date – I get a full 7 days – I decided to write the review immediately because I had a chance to look behind the scenes a couple of days ago. I could probably delay the acceptance by a couple of days to stretch things out beyond a week.

Total Transparency

I think it is important to make things absolutely transparent with this review, so here are the remainder of the instructions I received

Requirements
# Please provide a link to our homepage. We also strongly suggest that you link to your blog profile page in order to notify your readers (and potential buyers) that if they want to buy a review from you they can sign up at SponsoredReviews. You can find the link to your blog profile page by clicking on the blog in your “manage blogs” tab. Here is what a profile page looks like. http://www.sponsoredreviews.com/blog-190.html

Description
# SponsoredReviews is Officially Launched! Monday, 12th

We would love to have you review SponsoredReviews.com.

Here are some facts that separate us from the competition:

We have a low 35% transaction fee. This is the lowest out of all of our competitors.

Our Hybrid system is the only one that allows both advertisers and bloggers to search for each other.

Our bidding system allows bloggers and advertisers to negotiate pricing.

Bi-Weekly payout for bloggers means your hard work pays off quickly.

Accepted Review Information
# You have until 3/19/2007 10:57:55 AM to provide us with the URL to the completed review on your blog. If we do not receive the URL by the due date, the review will be cancelled.

They asked for a link, but technically it wouldn’t I suppose have to be a followable one ;)
I am sure someone would pick holes in them asking for a link, but if someone is looking for buzz and to drive traffic to a website, a link is a logical thing to have on a review.
I doubt I would ever review a site that I wouldn’t link to, and if I did, that is one viable use of nofollow or true dynamic links (but this review isn’t the place for nofollow and links are a pointer not a vote discussions)

They make a suggestion of a way to turn this review into more cash by including a link to my order page – very smart, and something similar could be done with affiliate links. In fact as reviews can be negotiated, the possibility of additional monetization down the road is a good incentive to do cheaper reviews.

Sponsored Reviews In Depth

When submitting a new blog you have to make sure it conforms to the Sponsored Reviews minimal requirements.

Requirements and Important Information:

* Your blog must contain at least 10 posts with 200 words of unique content each.
* Your blog must not be completely automated or appear to be created solely for search engine traffic.
* Your blog must have at least a 3:1 ratio of non-paid to paid content.
* You must complete all accepted reviews within 7 days, or your account will be suspended.
* Foreign Language blogs (non-english) must clearly state in the title which language the blog is written in. i.e. “Jose’s Blog – Spanish”. You must also state (in the description) whether you will write the review in English or another language.
* Blogs with very little traffic and/or links, may be rejected .

They are looking for real blogs, not made for Adsense sites. Blogs that have subscribers
Blogs are not automatically approved, there is a manual check done on each site, and that might take a day or so (at least it did for me though that was during beta)

Information is gathered about your blog when you sign up

I just entered my WordPress Plugins site to grab a screenshot, I won’t be doing any reviews on that site of 3rd party products.
Unfortunately I haven’t found a way of refreshing the stats for a site, which hopefully will be included in the future. Site statistics change over time, and there is no mention of a refresh interval.

After you have waited a few seconds you are presented with the following screen.

When I first signed up I believe the price they suggested for a review was $30 – now if my typical review was just 100-200 words, with the 65% payment that might be almost workable, provided there was an affiliate link available or other way to monetize the content. But I get the choice to set my own price, so I set it to $150, and I will probably increase that to $200 the same as I have promised for ReviewMe.

With paid reviews you aren’t just buying links, buzz and traffic, but some may only be looking for that, and if that is all you are after, then please don’t buy a review from me.

What I hope I can provide is:-

• Expert (?) opinion – or I just fake it extremely well, maybe I should become a Wikipedia editor
• Targeted Highly Qualified Traffic – I have very few tire kickers in my readership
• More than just the typical buzz – if there is something right or wrong with your service, from my perspective, which might relate to the perspective of my audience, you are going to hear about it, and so will my readers.

So $150 it is – bah I am worth it

On the screenshot you will also see “Status: Public” – you can also set that to private, or what I would call “Lurker Mode“.

Lurker mode would allow you to be included with the system, but not have your blog on public display for everyone to grab screenshots and point a finger at you. It would however prevent advertisers finding you. You would have to make approaches to advertisers who have posted a review opportunity.

I prefer being in a strong negotiation position with advertisers, so not having to approach them I believe is of benefit.

Category Selection

Here are the available categories:- (alongside is the current tag list)

Art
Autos
Baby
Books
Business
College
Current Events
Education
Entertainment
Environment
Fashion
Food
Gadgets
Games
Health
House & Home
Humor
Kids
Law
Marketing
Media
Money
Movies & Film
Music
Personal
Photography
Politics
Programming
Real Estate
Religion
Science
Sports
Technology
Travel
Web Design
Women

In bold are the categories I write about among others, yet I can only select one category. My blog is actually fairly well niched on specific topics that tend to branch into other things quite naturally, yet the current category selection system doesn’t allow for that.

A saving grace is that the system also supports tagging, and I included lots of tags. I think I will have to increase the number of tags I used to cover some more of these broader topics.
Tags are used within the blog browsing section heavily, and in fact I think they are merged with the categories, so whilst you can only include one category currently, if you include tags for the categories you can’t select, you effectively get the same.

Already there are a few reviews available with a great variety of prices.

One of those listed was actually for Sponsored Reviews, and it had been there for a couple of days with a lower price than I eventually received, though I didn’t have to haggle for a higher price, which would have been fun and a good test of the system, or it might have highlighted one of the current flaws.

No Messaging

Negotiation is a discussion process, not just firing prices backwards and forwards. There are all kinds of aspects to a deal that might require some additional form of contact, and it would be best to have that on record within the interface.
This would actually be of benefit both to Sponsored Reviews and to myself – for me to ensure things are all in one place, and for Sponsored Reviews to ensure that negotiations take place there, and not off-site where private deals could be negotiated for more favourable terms.

Advertiser Advantages

I love the 2 way negotiation concept, and it allows advertisers to negotiate a review based on other factors. That could just be the advertiser providing a sample of the product you could keep should you wish – yes I know that the blogosphere was up in arms about Microsoft and review units of nice laptops, but that was unwarranted. This system does require true messaging to be viable however.

I would love to be able to offer a showcase to advertisers for reviews I have completed for others in the past – not just for Sponsored Reviews, but also other services. They don’t want to see the general type of blog content, but the type of review you would write for them.
If they are looking for reviews as consultation in some way, rather than just buzz marketing or links, then some idea of what they can expect would be great.

Attention To Detail

I am actually amazed to have found so few bugs or missing features with the system. There are a few things hidden away that are very good touches such as a support ticket system which should be available with all such systems, but aren’t.

Here is something I like, a configuration for notification of new review opportunities hidden in the Account Settings.

Payment

Brand new service, so how can you tell?

They are not unknown however, because they are a sister service to Text Link Brokers who have a good payment reputation.

Billing Cycles are every 2 weeks, which sounds great to me, and payments are made by Paypal which also gets a thumbs up.

Disclosure

You have to disclose, though I think they need to be a little more specific on how, where, why.
As an example I believe my general disclosure might be enough for legal purposes with the FTC, but Sponsored Reviews might prefer a disclosure as I have done here, in the first line.

Comparison To Other Services

PayPerPost – currently only have fixed price opportunities, but a lot more of them. Whilst many would say that PPP have different disclosure terms, I believe the required disclosure for PPP is within the law, and is far beyond what most affiliate networks require, and the disclosure most affiliates use on a day to day basis (I don’t count “(aff)” as full disclosure for casual visitors)
PPP do have higher value gigs, up to $1000 currently, but they are really aimed at buzz marketing and possibly just link acquisition. I believe they have over 15,000 reviewers, so certainly have first mover advantage and economy of scale. I am not sure of the exact percentage of review fee that goes to reviewers, but I seem to remember it was much more than 50%.
Pay Per Post is very much automated, providing reviewers with exact link code – they even handle fine detail such as rotation of anchor text and destination URL, and for those looking for more precise data, they have tracking of review page views and click-through tracking using redirects.
They have some great concepts of their own such as their “Review My Post” affiliate program, which pays out to both the affiliate and the reviewer. (see my comment section and get paid to review this post)

ReviewMe – I believe it is a very similar program in intentions to Sponsored Reviews. They recently introduced a way for reviewers to set their own prices which was desperately needed for sites like mine that do extensive reviews rather than short buzz articles. They take a slightly bigger cut of the pie (50%) and pay on a monthly basis. They do however have an affiliate program for signing up new advertisers, but that is a one-off payment.
They have an advantage over Sponsored Reviews because they have been on the market longer, but whilst this is only a guess, I would think both services have a lot of work cut out to catch Pay Per Post for the mass market.
It wouldn’t require rocket science for ReviewMe to add the features that currently differentiate them from Sponsored Reviews, such as the negotiation of fees, although a pricing change might be harder to stomach. Get Reviewed At ReviewMe!

Choices

If I am promoting someone to buy a review from my site, it has now become a very hard choice.

• Sponsored Reviews offers me a bigger cut
• Sponsored Reviews potentially pays me faster
• Sponsored Reviews provides some level of negotiation
• Sponsored Reviews allows me to look for reviews

It is hard for me to judge the difference in quality of landing page and the “feel” an advertiser would have working with each company.

If I am receiving review requests, it doesn’t matter which service provides them. Both companies have their own existing client relationships from selling text links – it is going to be interesting.

Affiliate Program and Mind Share

A lot will come down to the affiliate program offerings.

Affiliates will want (to make a difference)

• Income from Advertisers
• Income from New Publishers
• Recurring Income

ReviewMe currently offer $25 fixed payment for a signup – that isn’t too bad for a CPA program, but I am a greedy affiliate who likes recurring income.

ReviewMe have a lot more of the pie available to share out if they wanted to. Giving out 15-20% of the income on a recurring basis for new sign ups, either Advertisers or Publishers would be quite painful for Sponsored Reviews, but I have a feeling they could still reciprocate, and with the sums of money involved for the higher priced reviews, it would still be profitable for both.

With potentially more than half my audience having already heard of ReviewMe and signed up, Sponsored Reviews seems like the better program to promote for site reviews currently.

So if you want a product reviewed, here is my Sponsored Reviews page.
Yes I wish it was an affiliate link, but it is more of a win/win thing with the advertisers. Customer satisfaction is important, as long as they know they can’t buy my opinion.

Flexibility and negotiation in pricing owns – give it a try.