Comments on: Paying Bloggers – Right or Wrong is Not the Question

By: dagood

dagood — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:17:58 +0000

The problem is that people are claiming that there can be payment, but that the integrity of the opinion is not affected. That’s clearly BS.

Why don’t we just allow advertsing space in the areas that people actually look? Advertorials, basically.

By: simonsalt

simonsalt — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:33:27 +0000

You are exactly right. It does happen all the time, its just the medium that has changed.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:49:30 +0000

I don’t have a problem with this at all. This happens at every level of communication, athletes are paid to endorse a product that they’d never touch (do you really think that Tiger Woods drives a Buick?). The same goes for industry ‘experts’. Blogging is relatively new on the scene, but this is ultimately no different. These same firms have no issue with paying a PR firm to write press releases.

I do think that for ethical reasons it is wise to state that its a paid post. But once that’s cleared up I’d have no issue with reading or writing paid posts.

By: simonsalt

simonsalt — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:49:02 +0000

Tom
Thank you for your comments. Great thoughts as always. You are absolutely right about influence and engagement.
Simon

By: Tom Myer

Tom Myer — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:22:52 +0000

Social media = publishing when it comes to delivering content. If you can’t engage/interest/influence the audience, then you’re on the wrong track and need to seriously revamp your product, your positioning, your strategy, whatever. Maybe even find a new audience, if the one you have isn’t delivering what you need.

If you put a sponsored post up there that your audience wants to know about, then there’s really no problem (although I do think that disclosure is a good thing). All of those having kerfluffles over this kind of thing should remember how everyone got the vapors over sponsored links in search engines five/six years ago. (Yeah, we were all that silly.)

At the end of the day, blogging is no different from any other conversation. Go back to Dale Carnegie’s first rule of “winning friends and influencing people” — become genuinely interested in other people. Bam, good advice.

By: Len Kendall

Len Kendall — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:27:42 +0000

The fine line is one that will ultimately be decided by readers. If a blogger is presented with an opportunity to participate in a sponsored conversation he/she must do it in a way that will not alienate their readers. If they do it the wrong way, their readers will leave and subsequent opportunities will go away because the base is now smaller. So basically, economics will drive us to the sweet spot of balancing authenticity and influenced.

By: Natanya Anderson

Natanya Anderson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:25:42 +0000

I've read some of the commentary on this topic and I think you're on to something here. Blogs command the readership that they do because they provide something of interest and value to the reader. Although bloggers have an agenda (or possibly more than one), successful bloggers know that they have to think first and foremost about their audience to accomplish that agenda. And in the end, audience-centric succeeds in social where brand-centric typically fails. Brands are starting to recognize that this audience-centric approach has value, but creating that kind of content with any true authenticity or scale doesn't happen over night. Beyond needing to mobilize their organization and acquire new skills, they typically have to make a major cultural shift in the way thy think about marketing to and conversing with their customers. I would agree that sponsoring those who have what the brands don't -- engagement, authenticity, audience trust, and audience focus -- is a good short term solution but will not in the end be the only solution. It's going to be interesting to see how bloggers balance this new found opportunity with the practices that made them successful enough to have the opportunity in the first place. When brands do put true audience-centric content on the Web (like Sony, HP, and Kraft have for example), consumers know the source of the content and understand intrinsically that this is part of a marketing strategy designed to build loyalty and sell more stuff. Because the offering is so good, customers happily go along with it even though they are being exposed to the brand message and product advertising. I think they will expect the same transparency from bloggers and the brands that sponsor them. Otherwise, the sponsored content will loose its authenticity and rapidly call into question the blogger's overall credibility.