In 2008, I wrote the fact that\u00a0paid blogging is a lose-lose situation.\u00a0 I stick with everything written in that post.\u00a0 Upon noticing a slew of new services \u2013 including those which allow companies to pay for Tweets (it\u2019s laughable in-and-of itself that anyone is gullible enough to pay for that) I\u2019ve been reflecting further on the idea of sponsored conversations.<\/p>\n
If you read no further in this post, just consider this point:\u00a0\u00a0you can\u2019t commoditize something as organic as a conversation.<\/strong>\u00a0The second you do, the people having those conversations cease to be people and transform into shills.\u00a0 You might trick some users but it\u2019s not authentic and there is zero trust involved.\u00a0 It\u2019s manipulation, not conversation.<\/p>\n Companies, individuals and marketers with a grasp on how\u00a0digital influence\u00a0really works know better than to engage in such tactics.\u00a0 Those on both sides of sponsored conversations operate on a parallel web to the rest of us who know better and tune them out.\u00a0 They have no real\u00a0influence, authority or trust.<\/p>\n Just to sum up my previous post (linked in graph one) on why sponsored conversations are a situation where nearly everyone loses:<\/p>\n Content producers\u00a0<\/strong>– of any length or variety \u2013 lose credibility and are seen by others as shills.\u00a0 All those years of hard work to build up trust are not worth throwing away for a few bucks.\u00a0 Also, they\u00a0risk their search engine authority\u00a0\u2013 potentially a site\u2019s most valuable (and hard earned) asset.<\/p>\n Businesses<\/strong>\u00a0take a risk by engaging in sponsored conversations as it shows an almost total misunderstanding of the social web, opening themselves up to ridicule.\u00a0 Sponsored conversations are inherently anti-social.\u00a0 Additionally, these companies succeed in training social web users to expect money every time they are mentioned and potentially destroy organic relationships.<\/p>\n Readers<\/strong>\u00a0lose because they are consuming content that is influenced by cash, not passion.\u00a0 I actively encourage you to unsubscribe from sites which take cash to write about products or brands within regular editorial content.\u00a0 Reading these posts is as painful as listening to most hold music.\u00a0 (As an aside, there is a difference with providing a product, sans-cash, to review.\u00a0 It is when cash becomes involved that you\u2019ve crossed editorial-advertising lines and create an awkward result that serves no one.)<\/p>\n Marketing and PR professionals<\/strong>\u00a0who must pay individuals directly to talk about a product or service have failed at their job of organically spreading ideas.\u00a0 \u201cSponsored conversations\u201d is an oxymoron anyway, it is a malignant advertisement.<\/p>\n Companies brokering the conversations<\/strong>\u00a0win, they insert themselves as middleman between people and marketers for profit.\u00a0 As marketers you should be upset \u2013 these companies cheapen what you do by sending the message \u201cconversations can be commoditized.\u201d\u00a0 As untrue as we all know this is, they are interested in propagating this idea, it\u2019s how they profit.\u00a0 The entire marketing community \u2013 at least those with respect for quality marketing \u2013 should be vocally against these companies.\u00a0 They\u2019re trying to eat a free lunch off what our industry has built.<\/p>\n But I was pondering this idea today and I think it actually goes a step deeper:\u00a0 sponsored conversations are for the uninspired.<\/p>\n Sponsored conversations are for uninspired marketers<\/strong>.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a marketer and the only way you can\u00a0 get people to talk about a client or your own brand is to pay others cash for conversation, it shows a total lack of creativity.\u00a0 In fact, if you just want people to write about your brand but don\u2019t care about actually influencing anyone \u2013 go right over to companies such as Izea, pay them and skip having a marketer altogether.\u00a0 I\u2019ll go ahead and say it like it is:\u00a0 their product is for uninspired marketers.<\/p>\n Also, I don\u2019t trust the fact that Forrester studies and executives are quoted all over the Izea site.\u00a0 They are (trying to) leverage the trust of Forrester for their own product.\u00a0 I agree with Mitch Joel:\u00a0\u00a0trust is non-transferable\u00a0and see through this play, it\u2019s less subtle than Izea thinks.<\/p>\n Michael Arrington\u2019s\u00a0quote from 2007\u00a0still holds up nicely to describe Izea in-particular but actually describes any company which attempts to translate cash for conversations:<\/p>\n They (IZEA) are the blogging world\u2019s pariah and are fairly routinely trashed for, as I put it, polluting the blogosphere.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Do you want to be a marketer or company known for polluting the blogosphere?\u00a0 Exactly.<\/p>\n Sponsored conversations are for uninspired bloggers:\u00a0<\/strong>If you are posting sponsored conversations on your blog, you immediately place yourself in the bucket of those to be taken less seriously.\u00a0 Getting paid cash to write up content about a product or company on your personal channel is just unartful.\u00a0 Plus it cheapens\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0of your other content.\u00a0 Wonder why writers like\u00a0Seth Godin\u00a0and\u00a0Mike Masnick\u00a0are concurrently interesting and trusted?\u00a0 Exactly \u2013 you can\u2019t fathom them taking cash to write up a product.<\/p>\n Sponsored conversations are for uninspired companies<\/strong>:\u00a0 No doubt, some companies can and do pay people money to stand on street corners and yell to those passing by about their product.\u00a0 Paying web users cash to talk about your product is no different, and those people and companies both look just as ridiculous.<\/p>\n Quick conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n Digital content creators \u2013 if you want to sell-out for cash, go for it:\u00a0 but it speaks volumes about your character and cheapens your own brand on the web.<\/p>\n Companies or marketers, if you want to go for an easy, feel good marketing tactic (look, metrics!) go for it, engage companies which broker sponsored conversations, but realize you\u2019re not building a brand in a way which is scalable or authentic.\u00a0 It\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0accountable, and most services stress this \u2013 because it\u00a0has to be<\/em>, that\u2019s all it has, however accountability is not necessarily effectiveness.\u00a0 Social media is influence (an intangible) not ROI.<\/p>\n Marketers send a very different message to the world by engaging in these type of shill-tactics than they do by leveraging\u00a0permission marketing.\u00a0 Sponsored conversations are not even close to a permission-based tactic.\u00a0 But I guess not all companies want to market authenticity\/build relationships, and not all bloggers care to be trusted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2008, I wrote the fact that\u00a0paid blogging is a lose-lose situation.\u00a0 I stick with everything written in that post.\u00a0 … <\/p>\n