Twitter goes mainstream says an article in The Wall Street Journal and I think it is.

Last week I noticed a few new starters and besides that you see more and more companies using and tracking twitter.

I mentioned earlier the respond on my complaints about netvibes on twitter and their active reply. You see this happening more often. Lately I had the same thing with skype while complaining about the quality.

One thing to be careful for as a company on twitter is again that you deliver value. There are a bunch of companies which just publish their rss feeds to twitter. That is not so bad. But the thing is they never respond if you send them a message. So no interaction.

About this going meanstream this seems more the case in the US. Counting Swiss Tweets look at swisstweets.chor follow swisstweet on twitter. The amount of twitter users in Switzerland is not much, but think also about the quality of its visitors.

Performance based marketing can be really attractive for both parties. With the example of affiliate marketing and some tests I did myself I see some basics coming up which I like to share with you.

Performance based can be attractive because there is almost no risk. As a company you only have to pay a commission when a sale is made. For the publisher/sales person there is normally a higher reward.

Performance based solutions don’t suite all marketing campaigns though. Best is to keep in mind a sales agent you pay per sale.

You need a clear goal and clear tracking. If the goal is vague you can better stick to payment per hour or some other sort of payment. When a sales agent has to do all kind of side work he/she will feel this as a distraction if he doesn’t get payed. If he does get payed a company has often the feeling of paying too much.

Tracking must be good. When a sales agent gets the feeling his revenue is going to somebody else he will stop for sure.

The biggest disadvantage of performance based marketing however is time. How do you keep the sales agents motivated. They are investing time and do get a lot of interesting other offers. So there is a competition for the sales person’s time or attention.

This is were trust and incentives get in. And this is exactly the reason why you can do a lot of harm if you are going for a quick gain and forget about your sales agents/affiliates. Be careful you have a name to protect.

Most people still have the feeling that making good money online is for big businesses and brands. However the Internet makes it easier than ever to start your own business with almost nothing to invest.

Big companies are often moving slow and if you hit the right market those big companies’ only solution is to buy your innovative fast growing online business.

Here are some tips to get you started.

• Most people think of selling things. When you have indeed a product to sell. You can just start by creating an online shop with for example Amazon Webstore or sites like eBay and start right away. I know someone who is just selling Ikea stuff on eBay. Some people just don’t know how cheap Ikea is and she makes a profit.
• If you don’t have a product to sell. You can either sell a service like cleaning, consultancy etc. Or you can start buying cheap products from China on alibaba.com.
• Best of all is just to start selling product of others. Become a publishers for an affiliate network like Tradedoubler.com and start selling. You get a commission for each sale you make. You may need a website which you create with free online tools. You can also use advertising like Google Adwords and redirect your clicks to get the commission. (read the affiliate program regulations)
• If you think affiliate marketing is too complicated just get started with sites like Friendhunter.nl. On friendhunter you can become a headhunter in one minute. You just register on the site. Then you start to contact all your friends asking if they are interested in this wonderful new job you saw.
• Talking about friends. It is good to have a lot a friends online. If you have a lot of online contacts or friends in for example social networks. People are also willing to pay for just sending these friends a message.
• More like a creative one. Act like a Brand. Be creative. Do what you love most. Because then you have never ending energy and ideas. When you have a brought idea/concept. Give it a name and logo. Start spreading this idea, keep moving. You will become an online identity which people trust, like, hate. Big Brands will want to be associated with you.

Good luck! End keep me updated.