If you've been asked to join an MLM (multi-level marketing) or network marketing company and you're not sure how to decide whether it's a good or bad idea, contact me and I'll take a look and provide my input for you. No cost.

Why can this be valuable for you? Because I'm a fan of the basic concept of network marketing, but not a fan of things like:

• Vaguely disguised Ponzi schemes
• Grossly overpriced products
• High start-up fees and costly start-up packages
• Complicated compensation plans that disguise how you get paid, or make it difficult to get paid
• Websites that won't do a good job of helping you to makes sales or referrals (because they look old, they're poorly written, they lack information, etc.)

This means I'll support you joining if it seems like a good program (I'm not here to bash the industry), but I may offer some red flags for you to consider before joining to help protect you.

Please note that I won't review programs based on digital downloads or any sort of gifting program (just passing money up a chain), and I won't put my email address into a form to get to the information -- I need to see the company's products and services, their website, and their compensation plan.

Give me that and I'll do my best to offer honest feedback on the program, and may post a review on this site to help others as well. Granted, my opinions don't make me right; they just make me right for ME. And my hope is that my insights offer value for you as well.

PennyPays came out in beta several months ago as a program you could join at NO cost and then earn something just for sharing posts on Facebook. Today was its official launch.

At this time, few "post shares" are being purchased by businesses, so there aren't many for members to share. That means earning, for now, is slow. But as they improve the targeting options for businesses (I'm told this is coming soon), its value will soar and I believe there will be plenty of posts to share and earn from.

As a free member, you can earn from 5 to 90 cents for each post shared. As a premium member ($9.95/month) you can earn from 15 cents to $1.50 for each post shared. And you always keep control over the posts you share.

(Premium members also get many other benefits, like the ability to purchase shares for less if they want, the ability to refer others, and the ability to earn from those others when they're sharing or buying post shares. ALSO ... premium members are put into the 2x14 matrix and can earn without making any personal referrals.)

Because I see so much potential in this service, I'm already working on a video that will be exclusively available to the premium members I refer. (You'll be able to put it on a web page if you have one. Other people will not be able to do this.) So I encourage you to check out PennyPays and join my team if you like what you see. As more people join my team, I'll consider whether to provide a free landing page with this video on it in case you don't have a website to use.

While the back office (available to free and premium members) is already very good, I understand they're making improvements to it. And here is a glimpse at the back office as it will soon appear on smartphones. Don't miss out on this high-potential program!
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I recently ran across a program that launched in fall 2016 called PennyPays. It's essentially based on two concepts:

1. Get paid to share posts on Facebook (which are paid for by individuals or businesses wanting to spread their messages through social media).
   
   
2. Buy "post shares" as an individual or business in order to spread your message through social media.

You can join for free and engage in either option. You can also upgrade at a cost of $9.95/month in order to make more from sharing posts, and to get a discount on purchasing post shares.

Doing some research into the company, I ran across several posts calling this company a recruiting scam because there's no product or service. But here's why PennyPays is not a scan.

I'm a digital marketer by trade. This means I spend a lot of time with digital marketing software and services, and clearly being able to purchase post shares on Facebook is one such service. And PennyPays allows you to do this with a free account. Upgrading just provides you with a discount. That sounds like a pretty standard and legitimate business model to me.

Basically, if you're planning to buy more than a certain number of shares to spread your message each month, make sure to upgrade -- it will save you money. Sort of like upgrading your phone plan if you plan on using a lot of minutes so you're not paying for minutes individually.

We can look at the rest of the business, but the fact of this one service legitimizes everything about the program. At least as a business model. This doesn't mean they will run the company well or that they offer the best post sharing value. But it does mean that the business model is legitimate.

Now let's talk about value. There are other companies that will sell you more shares for less money. But as a professional digital marketer, I'd be wary of using these services because I haven't seen transparency around the accounts that actually do the sharing. They might claim to be US based. They might claim to be "real" accounts. But there's no explanation of how they're accumulated.

PennyPays, on the other hand, interfaces with Facebook directly and takes each account through a verifying process that I already experienced. It verifies where you live for local shares (and this can't be changed more than once a month). It verifies how many friends you have, and you can't have fewer than 50 (so you can't set up fake accounts and make money). You're paid more based on having more friends, but have a limit as to how many new friends you can have each month so you're not cheating your way into higher earnings. And you can't share privately in order to gip the business of its exposure -- you have to share to Friends or to Public.

This is all VERY transparent and should be attractive to businesses that want to have their messages spread through real shares on real accounts. And yes, there's value to this kind of sharing for the business.

At the time of this writing, PennyPays still needs to refine its targeting options. The first critical step is for "web shares" (rather than local shares for local businesses) to allow country targeting, as many of us operate in single countries only. I believe this will begin to increase the number of ads being bought. And increasing ads bought is critical because right now there are few opportunities to share posts, and therefore few opportunities to earn by sharing them.

But these are the growing pains of any young company.

Bottom line ... yes, there is an opportunity to earn by promoting the service to other people. You can earn whether they upgrade or not (earn when they earn by sharing posts); and you can earn from the matrix of people below you when they do upgrade. But you're not earning for recruiting people into something with no product or service; you're earning for selling a monthly subscription to a real digital marketing service.