{"id":926,"date":"2023-03-08T21:17:24","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T21:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/?p=926"},"modified":"2023-03-23T08:55:40","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T08:55:40","slug":"paid-blogging-is-a-lose-lose-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/paid-blogging-is-a-lose-lose-situation\/","title":{"rendered":"Paid Blogging Is A Lose-Lose Situation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bloggers have been fired up all week due to a bit of controversy over the idea of paid blogging, a situation where a company pays a blogger cash directly for coverage. I would like to discuss why the idea of having a company directly pay someone cash to blog about them is a situation where nearly everyone loses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why businesses lose<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Businesses that pay bloggers directly to blog about them miss the point of the medium completely and appear that way to the public. They might as well buy ad space and support a blogger and not participate in something that actually harms everyone.<\/li>\n<li>People are going to ridicule you for your efforts, even if you are being transparent and the bloggers themselves disclose the situation. They will see that you aren\u2019t creative enough or have a good enough product to warrant coverage on your own, thus you have to pay for it.<\/li>\n<li>Bloggers are happy to write on companies from a natural angle if you use pull strategies instead of push.<\/li>\n<li>More than 80% of bloggers\u00a0<em>are already writing on products and brands<\/em>, according to the 2008 Technorati state of the blogosphere. Much of this is organic, but much of this is also a byproduct of great marketing\/PR efforts. In other words, be remarkable and have great marketing and you\u2019ll be talked about.<\/li>\n<li>Blogging is really a big conversation, so if you\u2019re paying cash directly for placements, what you are doing is in effect paying people to talk about you.\u00a0 It is highly telling about a brand if they need to pay people for coverage.<\/li>\n<li>This is not the same as advertising or advertorial writing because you are paying the editorial person to write about you. With advertorials the company is drafting the content themselves.\u00a0 By paying an editorial writer to write a fluff piece, it actually cheapens both their message and yours.<\/li>\n<li>The whole idea of paying people to blog, talk, or write about a company is inherently flawed from step one \u2013 if it was actually effective at spreading messages the whole PR industry would not even exist as the idea would have been applied to traditional media years ago. Think about it.<\/li>\n<li>When the blogosphere talks about you again naturally, it is never taken as seriously moving forward by those who know you pay for placements.\u00a0 Companies that don\u2019t pay for placements and are talked about naturally will inherently be viewed on a higher level.<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019re paying exuberant fees to an intermediary company for what is essentially turning a writer into a shill.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why bloggers lose<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Instant loss of credibility.\u00a0 Even if readers claim they are fine with it, in their mind your blog\u2019s brand is weakened. You can\u2019t run paid placements, even with transparency in the same area as natural content, that isn\u2019t how media works. Clear separation of ads and editorial are vital for trust.<\/li>\n<li>You don\u2019t see people like\u00a0Seth Godin,\u00a0Maki,\u00a0Aaron Wall,\u00a0Steve Rubel,\u00a0Ariana Huffington,\u00a0Mike Masnick\u00a0or other ultra-respected\/trusted bloggers taking cash for posts.\u00a0 There is a reason for that \u2013 they know better than to risk their credibility for a few bucks.<\/li>\n<li>Google discourages paid links and if part of the deal with a company paying you to post is to link to that company, you are actually breaching Google\u2019s webmaster guidelines (unless you are careful to use no-follow links).<\/li>\n<li>Readers have infinite choice in the blogosphere &#8211;\u00a0 is it really worth a few bucks for a post here and there to turn a percentage of them off?\u00a0 The answer is always no, it is far too much work to gain readers to do something that jeopardizes months, perhaps years of hard work building subscribers.<\/li>\n<li>Even if you are being transparent and letting people know that a company paid you to write the post, it still positions the blog author as weak and quick to sell out.<\/li>\n<li>It cheapens the blogosphere on a whole just as it is gaining respect and maturing as a platform.<\/li>\n<li>What if a new reader finds this post as their first read at your blog?\u00a0 They may instantly be turned off.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why readers lose<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The strong, impassioned editorial voice of the writer is destroyed by cash-for-posts and replaced by an awkward and influenced voice that is painful to read.<\/li>\n<li>Reviewing products is a completely different animal than taking cash for writing something up.\u00a0 Readers are more than happy to check out products that are reviewed by bloggers.\u00a0 When someone receives a product for review, a blogger is free to write on it however he\/she wants and it is still viewed as editorial (otherwise, not a single technology\/gadget magazine could even exist).\u00a0 But if cash is directly given up front for a post on something, no matter what is written, it is viewed by the reader as influenced by money.\u00a0 The reader simply cannot take it seriously.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why marketers and PR people lose<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you are in marketing, PR or even advertising, this type of service can actually circumvent your hard work of building a brand and be an instant-credibility killer on all fronts. There is not much to gain and far more to lose when you have worked hard for years building a brand that is viewed positively by the world.<\/li>\n<li>This type of effort almost feels like a \u201clast ditch\u201d effort of a failing company or model that no one wants to pay attention to. It is unsustainable and there is no possible way to build upon this over time other than throwing more money at people and becoming known as a company that\u00a0<em>needs<\/em>\u00a0pay-for-play in editorial space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Jeremiah Owyang\u00a0added two more reasons in the comments that are worthwhile:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bloggers could be biased to write positive reviews, or not receive sponsorship again.<\/li>\n<li>Allen Stern suggested that if reviews are glowing, and audience then finds out if the product is not, not only is the bloggers reputation hurt, but the company\u2019s is.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The only winner as I see it in this situation is the company or service brokering these deals between companies and bloggers. And if I were a company and I wanted to pay someone directly to get ink, why even bother going through a third party? Most high profile bloggers put their contact information public, seems like you could easily identify people in your niche and go after them yourself. Not that companies\u00a0<em>should<\/em>\u00a0pursue this action anyway, as outlined above there are no winners.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t matter if you wrap this idea in a website that outlines everything neatly and encourages transparency, the idea itself is flawed from the beginning. As a PR professional I would never recommend a client engaging in a program like this \u2013 it is high risk for little reward and is one of the most uncreative attempts at business to consumer relations I have witnessed.<\/p>\n<p>If you have something in your budget for a promotion, paying people directly to talk about your product is one of the worst ways to go. There are far better approaches to get publicity and buzz that cost less and yield\u00a0<em>much<\/em>\u00a0greater results and deeper influence for all parties involved. There\u2019s a nice multiplier when you engage in strong marketing, PR and advertising techniques.\u00a0 You don\u2019t achieve that here, and actually may hurt your future endeavors in this space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bloggers have been fired up all week due to a bit of controversy over the idea of paid blogging, a &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Paid Blogging Is A Lose-Lose Situation\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/paid-blogging-is-a-lose-lose-situation\/#more-926\" aria-label=\"More on Paid Blogging Is A Lose-Lose Situation\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}