Make Money with Black Friday 2008

A few days ago I mentioned using Cyber Monday (12/1) to make money online with your blog or website via affiliate links to participating retailers. Well soon Black Friday will be hitting you just like Aunt Milfred's Green Bean Casserole and burnt yams the day after Thanksgiving. There's plenty of opportunity to make money using Black Friday deals, should you be brave enough to venture out into the "real world" the day after you've pigged out on Turkey, stuffing, potatoes & pie. Some great items can be had at rock-bottom bargain prices in all sorts of stores. The best thing to do with these is find great deals on hot items and re-sell them on eBay. In my experience, new sealed in the package items are always hot sellers on eBay. Keep in mind that items may be flying off the shelves in some areas, but readily available in yours. So if someone in another state was after a hot item and it ran out quick in their store, they may be turning online to eBay to find it!

One great example is those GPS units. It seems a lot of places are offering these at great deals. CVS in particular was advertising one at $79. If you've got any of those CVS Rewards bucks or gift cards, you can cash them in towards one, then sell on eBay at a nice profit. Other examples are video game bundles, individual games and accessories. Many of these items will be topping wishlists, so if you find deals on hot ones, grab em! Of course make sure to research eBay sold prices for the items, rather than blindly expecting to make money off whatever you buy!

Many stores have already started their Black Friday sales, with some going on on Thanksgiving. Wal Mart, Best Buy, Kmart, Sears, Toys R Us and Target are amongst those offering deals on Turkey day.

Here's a link to Amazon.com's Black Friday page
. The online retailer is also participating in the day after Turkey day sales too! Also be sure to check out the site SpooFriday.com which has links to the Thanksgiving day and after Thanksgiving day sales!

Happy TweetsGiving & Thanksgiving!

Hello to all twitters who love to tweet..It's not only the Thanksgiving holiday this week, but there's also Tweetsgiving going on..it's a mouthful just like the turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes we'll all be enjoying. So what exactly is this "Tweetsgiving"?

Tweetsgiving is a special project created by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization called Epic Change. Their objective is to show just how powerful social media is, by raising funds in the amount of $10,000 to build a new classroom in Tanzania. They have just 48 hours to do it, and as of my last check, they were at $3,622.29 and climbing, 36% of the way towards their goal. TweetsGiving started Tuesday at noon and ends Thanksgiving day at noon.

One way to get involved in this is to spread the word. You can do that via your blog or social media profile, or even via a tweet on your Twitter profile. They ask that you share something you're thankful for and include the #TweetsGiving tag, plus a link to: http://tinyurl.com/4thanks

You can also participate by choosing to donate at least $10. You'll be able email a TweetsGiving tweet to tweetsgiving@gmail.com. Your special tweet will be painted on a brick used to build the classroom in Tanzania.

For $100 or more you'll be noted on their website as a "Top Turkey" along with your Twitter profile link. You can also choose to do some shopping at http://shop.epicchange.org/ where your purchases will help add 1 or more bricks to the school project.

So get tweeting before you start eating! Drop by the official Tweetsgiving.org page and follow @TweetsGiving for all the details on this wonderful and generous social media project!

To all Monetizer readers and moneymakers, may your Thanksgiving be full of happiness, lots of great food and prosperity!

Make Money with CyberMonday Shopping Deals!

Yep, it's just about that time again folks. You might be familiar with those ads on TV with a male voice joyfully singing "it's the most wonderful time, of the year!". However, the current economy just might be casting a dark cloud and raining on many people's Christmases & Holiday shopping. The Monetizer is far from Mr. Grinch though, so to put a positive spin on things, you can still make money online with this. CyberMonday is considered the official "day after Thanksgiving for online shopping". According to CyberMonday.com, the online shopping day falls on December 1, 2008, which is the Monday after Thanksgiving. This day was set in anticipation of all those people back to work or home after the holiday who decide to shop online.

It's an understatement for me to say that people are cutting back this year, due to the economy, but we all know many people still want to give gifts and still save money. Some homes/offices may decide to do Secret Santas for their families or works in the interest of not having to buy everyone a gift. One area people are less likely to do away with completely is in giving gifts to their children, or possibly a significant other. This gives you a great way to capitalize on some online sales. Of course, this is the sort of niche site or blog to set up months ahead of time, but now you can begin to add in various merchants with affiliates to your blog mix. You can see just some of the CyberMonday participants in the image below to get an idea of how you might them into your blog content.



Many online retailers are simply offering free shipping, and with good cause. People would rather not fight with crowds or wait in lines, or go through the hassle of finding a parking spot at the malls. Some retailers such as Home Depot, Sierra Trading Post & Office Depot are offering percent or cash off discounts to online shoppers. So there's bound to be some sort of affiliate related to your blog or website material that you can promote on your blog for CyberMonday. Start now, because being accepted by affiliates can take a few days (sometimes longer).

Also consider that Amazon Associates works well around the holidays. The great thing with their associate/affiliate program is you just need visitors to click on a link, and buy something from Amazon within so many days. No matter what item(s) they purchase, you'll receive commission. Consider setting up Gift Wishlist posts on your blog or creative gift ideas related to your niche, then use the Amazon links (using the code they give you) as the item titles. eBay Partner Networks and ShoppingAds are two other programs to tinker with on your site as people look for great deals online.

So while the economy looks bleak, turn it into a great opportunity, as consumer interest and deal shoppers just might help you make extra money this holiday season!

The Monetizer recommends CommissionJunction and/or Linkshare.com for affiliate programs in addition to Amazon Associates. Find out more about these and other programs at Monetizer's Recommended Moneymakers!

Find Hot Content & Make Money with Trendhunter

Ready to blog about the latest or up and coming new trends? It can be a great way to increase potential traffic and blog subscribers, by staying ahead of the crowd. There just happens to be a helpful, stylish new site which consists of members who hunt down the coolest stuff out there... Trendhunter.com is an online magazine, community site where members spot and hunt for the latest and hottest trends. (join community for free) Built in 2005, Trendhunter is the brainchild of Jeremy Gutsche, who wanted a creative business site to spot trends. The concept has the site able to identify all sorts of trends & even micro-trends in anticipation of "the next big thing"s. One of the testimonial quotes promoting the site from MTV says "At Trendhunter, find out what's cool, before its cool". See more testimonials and media here. The site presents visitors with the hottest trends over the past day, week, or month. You may already see the wheels spinning in your mind as to how this can help you with blogging about the latest and greatest info for your particular niche...

Google Trends is the popular program many bloggers have taken a liking to as it helps you spot search trends. From there you can craft blog posts to take advantage of these hot topics, and possibly gain a lot of search traffic to your blog. Trendhunter may present an even better way to do this, and allows you to embed the hot new trends right into your blog. They offer 99 flavors of RSS to add into your blog's sidebar columns, as well as widgets for Myspace, Twitter & Facebook, banners and many other cool tools to show off the hot or upcoming trends.

Just to give an example of last Thursday's hot trends in a 24 hour period:

Real Furbys, 40 Facebook Innovations, Top 20 Kickass Extreme and Gothic Greetings ranked amongst the top 5 hottest trends over a 24 hour time frame on Thursday, November 20, 2008.

In addition to their free trend reports, Trendhunter offers what many companies really want, the 2009 niche trend reports. Their perfect for strategizing and marketing to the current and up-and-coming "it" generations. These reports come at a price which may be hefty for the average blogger or small business owner. A year long subscription to reports runs about $1,500, with individual reports costing up to $500 or so.

Trendhunter offers a section of "Top Sites", where websites and blogs which are identified as top trend-finding sites are listed. The aforementioned Google Trends is there, as are well-knowns like Boing Boing & Techcrunch. If you author a blog of this nature which looks at the latest trends (mixed bag niche even), it may be a great promotional idea to submit your blog or site to Trendhunter. According to the site, you'd leverage their 8 million visitors worth of traffic!

And wouldn't you leave it to the Monetizer to find the "EARN $" section of Trendhunter.com! They have a small section which they say is ideal for students or bloggers, because in reality we're all trend hunters. From the looks of their revenue-sharing program, you're payed for submitting new trends. They also run Google adsense, so you may be sharing in those profits, similar to Squidoo. They claim to have 8 million visitors to the site, which could make for a lot of page views if you get a trend into the top trends. According to their site, their top trendhunters earn $1,000 a month! You can read more info about their moneymaking program here.

So bookmark Trendhunter and keep an eye on it. It just might give you something to blog about before the rest of your niche does, and give yet another way to make money online!