Stand-up comedian, actor and author Michael Ian Black has amassed almost 2 million Twitter followers since his first tweet pre-2010.

The Twitter early adopter is opinionated about everything from Angie Harmon’s hair to guitar solos – as well as his right to send and get paid for sponsored tweets.

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Wouldn’t it be great to know if that celebrity you follow on Twitter REALLY loves the hair product they’re always gushing about or if they’re being paid to say so?

Well, if you’re someone influenced by such things, you’ll be glad to know the FTC is about to crack down on sponsored tweets.

And if you’re a marketer, you’ll want to take a peek at this puppy too. Regular folk are expected to follow FTC guidelines as well.

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The Super Bowl was a wild success for advertisers who knew how to leverage Twitter and other social networks, but many advertisers apparently still just don’t get it.

Twitter knows this, yet it doesn’t focus on the hard sell by aggressively advertising. Why? It doesn’t have to.

Twitter has its own brand ambassadors proving Twitter’s value every day. And there’s one VERY smart way Twitter has created a win-win scenario that is the stuff magnificent marketing campaigns are made of: sponsored tweets.

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The Associated Press (AP) is blazing a trail for online news outlets this week, with its announcement today that it will be sharing sponsored tweets during CES.

Does this surprise and/or worry you? If so, you’re not alone, but you may be worrying needlessly.

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Research scientist Duncan Watts and his team at Yahoo! Research have published an interesting study that looks at the effect of elite users – celebrities, media outlets, organisations and power bloggers – and ‘ordinary’ users (everybody else) on the network.

Taking their information from Twitter lists, the research hoped to prove a difficult field of communication theory known as Lasswell’s Maxim, which ponders “who says what to whom in which channel with what effect”.

In other words: at the thick end, who influences who? And what does this mean for brands looking to utilise Twitter for marketing? Read more

An interesting read about how popular movie critic Roger Ebert uses Amazon to generate a second income stream on Twitter.

The untrained eye might not notice that shortened “amzn” link as a signal that Ebert stands to take a 7 percent cut on purchases his followers make after clicking into amazon.com, but his commercial Tweets have grown common enough that regular followers are surely getting the message.

Ebert says he devotes an average of four of his 25 to 30 daily Tweets to recommendations for merchandise available for sale at Amazon.com. He does that as an Amazon affiliate, an arrangement that more and more publishers (including Poynter) have made with the online retailer in recent years.

I’d noticed Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) doing this (on Facebook too) and was curious as to how receptive his followers were to these Amazon plugs which, while clearly documented, are still affiliate links.

The secret is how smoothly he does it – the way his ads are written and feel (to the reader) is very similar to all of his other tweets. It’s his voice. Plus he’s completely transparent. So much so, that his ads get a lot of retweets.

The size of Ebert’s audience (approaching 350,000 Twitter followers as of Thursday morning) is not the only element that sets him apart from other journalists. A commercial message that makes sense for a critic raises a whole other set of questions for a journalist whose focus is fact as opposed to opinion.

When asked about his Amazon deals by Christopher Heine of ClickZ, Ebert published his answers on his Sun-Times blog: “Have I made a fortune from Amazon? No. Have I made some? Yes. Am I happy to have it? You bet. Have I been amused? Yes. It’s kind of like fishing.”

Ebert also invited users to have their say about his Amazon ads, and more than 100 did so.

A few raised objections, but most told him, in effect, “no big deal,” or thanked him for the valuable tips he provides about good buys in videos, books, clothing and, among other things, coconut milk.

“Glad to have the tips, Roger! Keep ‘em coming,” wrote DannyNM.

Another reader wasn’t so sure at first. “I was disconcerted the first few times I followed one of Robert Ebert’s links to Amazon,” wrote Joann DiNova, “but have since welcomed them with interest. It’s rather like having a worldly, knowledgeable, interesting uncle who is sharing unusual or hard-to-find or little-known things I know I’m likely to appreciate. And his interests always tell me more about him that I’m happy to learn.”

Ebert goes on to talk about why he would never utilise a sponsored tweets network – and he’s right, as they’re massive turn-offs for a lot of users. There’s a lot for us all to learn from here – about etiquette, transparency and doing things right.

(Source: Poynter.)

Sponsored trending topics may soon be making an appearance, according to All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka (@pkafka).

The basic gist seems to be this: Advertisers will be able to insert their own term into the list of trends that Twitter displays on users’ home pages and on its login page. Clicking on that term would call up a Twitter search results page, which would feature that advertisers’ “Promoted Tweet” at the top of the results.

Advertisers who have heard Twitter talk about the product say the service imagines charging “tens of thousands of dollars” a day for exclusive placement rights.

I have to say this sounds like a really bad idea. I hate the thought of companies being able to buy their way into what is supposed to be a user-generated, trending topics list. I mean, sure, capitalism and all that, and I’m all for Twitter earning a buck, but where will it end?

(Source: All Things D.)