What celebrities get paid to Tweet about products

IZEA, an Orlando-based marketing firm, is making a move to monetize celebrity Tweeting – in effect, offering a marketplace for advertisers to pick and choose which celeb Tweets they can buy for promotional purposes, and for how much per post.

Indeed, IZEA, which launched just last July, has opened up its celebrity Twitter database to the public, a fascinating look at which actors, athletes and reality stars are willing to whore their Twitter accounts for a product or service.

The way it works is, IZEA contacts agents or other reps for various celebs (or vice versa) and gets an agreement in principle that that client is willing to “sell” a Tweet to marketers for promotional purposes.

So, for instance, Kim Kardashian – she of the five-million-plus-followed Twitter page – has been contracted in the past to Tweet/promote a new line of denim for Armani Exchange, which she did last year for a fee, Ashley Edwards, an IZEA spokesperson, told MSN on Monday.

IZEA uses an algorithm to come up with a suggested fee for each celebrity tweet, taking into account Twitter followers, page views and the celeb’s current brand reach, among other factors.

For your pleasure, then, Sponsored Tweets’ current celebrity top ten:

10. Khloe Kardashian, reality TV star - 2,020,532 followers: $2.941.25 per tweet
9. Ndamukong Suh, NFL defensive lineman - 40,818 followers: $2,941.25 per tweet
8. Stephanie Pratt, reality TV star - 478,996 followers: $2,941.25 per tweet
7. Spencer Pratt, reality TV star/doofus - 478,996 followers: $2,941.25 per tweet
6. Lindsay Lohan, actress/jailbird - 1,390,392 followers: $2,985.80 per tweet
5. Heidi Montag, reality TV star - 1,151,913 followers: $3,529.50 per tweet
4. Holly Madison, Playboy bunny - 533,709 followers: $4,000 per tweet
3. Soleil Moon Frye, Punky Brewster actress - 1,419,400 followers: $5,850 per tweet
2. Michael Ian Black, comedian - 1,574,746 followers: $5,882.50 per tweet
1. Kim Kardashian, reality TV star - 5,374,854 followers: “Call for price.”

No shortage of fascinating conversation topics on that list, surely. If you’re not amazed that Khloe Kardashian has more than two million Twitter followers, you’ve got to concede it’s pretty remarkable that a) Michael Ian Black could actually charge nearly $6,000 for anything, or that b) Soleil Moon Frye is still alive. And, the fact that advertisers need to contact Kim Kardashian for her price-per-Tweet cost is certainly interesting.

In any case, IZEA’s database also caters to the more modest Tweeter, meaning you or I or any Twitter user (with at least 100 followers, Edwards notes) can, theoretically, market ourselves to advertisers to sell our tweets. One catch: as with celebs, users must disclose that a promotional Tweet is being paid for, either with a “This Tweet is sponsored by …” line or a hashtag suggesting a marketer has given you a cheque for the content of your post.

By Jason Buckland, MSN Money