I Support the Future of Sponsored Posts

Here in Europe we are doing the same business with BuzzParadise (and coming to the US also). Our first business remain PR 2.0 with bloggers but I truly think you can pay bloggers for sponsored post (depending on the countries).
Bloggers can choose if they want to do money with their blog or not and can choose between simple PR or sponsored post.
The only difference with BuzzParadise is that bloggers can truly say what they think.
Therefore, with the disclosure and the fact that a blogger will never (or should not) risk to kill his blog for few money (such a hard work) – sponsored post are auto regulate by the community to my sense.

Chris,

Thanks for the follow-up. The truth is you do not really know if your brand has suffered at all. You’re seeing it only based on what is visible through your web analytics or what people will say to you. How many potential clients, speaking events, new business opportunities etc… might you have missed because you have gone down this path? My guess is you’ll never know.

In response to your question of trust, I am not sure that’s even the right question. You are a Blogger who delivers great content, I don’t really have to trust you (I am not looking for you to watch my kids). What I am looking for is credibility and integrity. The minute you started accepting money for your thoughts is the minute that credibility starts diminishing. I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks like this, and it’s probably the same reason why many of the best journalists and authors don’t do this type of advertising. I can easily skip over the shill posts and still get value out of what you do and the community. But, I still question everything you do now, whereas before, I didn’t. That does make me sad.

Pioneers always take the arrows.
I now live in the Northwest, USA… thanks to pioneers!

Big internet = Room for every option

Chris, you are extremely talented and yet you know I strongly disagree with the ethics of paid posts, also known as paid opinions. I’ll break it down for your readers.

1. Disclosure is not enough. You or I could disclose to our wives that we slept with a prostitute. Full disclosure. That doesn’t change the ethics of what we did. Saying “disclosure” makes paid posts OK is a logical fallacy since the ethics of the *action* have nothing to do with the *description* of what happened. Simple. If you question this, trying going home tonight and disclosing, “Hey, honey, I just slept with a hooker…”

2. Blogs are opinions. See your post above, and every comment that followed. Opinions. This is an important distinction, because paying someone to write an opinion is very different than paying someone to stick a block of ad copy on the page. If you disagree, please point me to a blog with entries of more than 10 words that doesn’t contain opinions.

3. “Paid posts” are thus “paid opinions.” You are buying the voice of someone’s mind.

4. Paying for an opinion creates a conflict of interest. The pay giver is seeking elevation of a topic and influence over a positive review (if not, why would they pay?). The pay recipient is compromised and influenced to write favorably over the product or perk given. If you disagree, please point me to 2 paid posts sharply critical of the product being paid for.

5. Conflicts of interest reduce credibility. This is why marketing executives in charge of million-dollar budgets don’t accept gifts more than $20 — because even the appearance of impropriety opens the door to complaints of favoritism or impropriety in future business dealings.

6. Reduction of credibility is not helpful to anyone’s career.

At the end, bloggers have a choice. Paid posts are not “wrong”; they are a PR vehicle that create a conflict of interest that may reduce the blogger’s credibility. Bloggers of course are welcome to walk that road if they choose. You can tweet about how much you like a GPS system given to you on loan, and many of us will digest that for the questionable transmission that it is.

But let’s be clear — paid posts are not sticking content on a page, like advertising or even advertorial. They are buying the opinions coming from people’s minds.

Take good care of your mind, Chris. You only have one.

Ben Kunz
c 203 506 7269

The comparison of paid posts to newspaper advertorial misses the point.

Advertorials are written by outside writers, not staff journalists. If staff journalists wrote advertorial in addition to their regular writing duties, readers would justly view everything they write with suspicion — paid, unpaid, whatever. That’s why newspapers generally don’t allow it.

The same will happen to bloggers, as Chris alludes to — you’ll have to qualify anything positive you write by saying whether you’re getting paid or not. And even when a post is unpaid, people will still wonder. All this subtly degrades readers’ perception of your independent voice — which might be the reason they read you in the first place. Maybe that’s worth the money, but it’s not without cost.

I am one of the 100 members of the Ford Fiesta movement and feel no qualms whatsoever about participating in this project. I wrote one blog post about what I was doing and why. That is sufficient disclosure.

I don’t see why people get all their knickers in a twist if a blogger is getting paid to do something or receiving products to review. (Note: Ford is not giving us cash compensation.)

We all have to make some money or derive some benefit from our effort. If you have a blog, provide quality content on a consistent basis, and throw in a “sponsored” post every now and then, what is the big deal? I have never monetized my blog and I would dare any of my readers to give me sh*t about my involvement with Ford. I’m doing it because it benefits my readers and I, too. I’ll get to go on trips that I would otherwise not have been able to do, which will actually enrich the content of my blog. I know my readers will enjoy posts about the excursions. And Ford has no real control over our content. It’s really quite a fascinating project in the grand scheme of blogger things, and I’m happy to be part of it.

The smart companies are the ones that are making it worth the blogger’s effort and I feel Ford has done that so far.

@Ben – I love talking with you about this as it hones my thinking like none other. You’re clearly passionate and have lots to say on the topic.

1.) Great point. Disclosure isn’t enough. There should be the sense that something is perceived to be fair, just, useful, of value to my blogging community. I believe that content marketing is acceptable in principle. Thus, I’m not necessarily disclosing a hooker, but definitely telling the wife I’m going out with the guys for a few beers.

2.) I disagree. MOST blogs are written as opinion. A blog is software, and perhaps loosely, a movement around the notions put forth by the Cluetrain Manifesto. But I think a blog like Digital Nomads isn’t a site about opinions. I don’t think TechCrunch considers itself an opinion site 100%. I know the Huffington Post would have you believe they’re a news outlet.

3.) Hmm. As I disagreed with 2, I don’t know what to say here. Let’s look at an example of a paid post. Nikon sent me a D60 camera to try out. I wasn’t obligated to write about it. I didn’t have to do anything, except either give it back or pay for it when the time came that the trial was up. If I were to write up my thoughts on the camera, I’d have started by disclosing the relationship. In fact, it’s mentioned on my about page. I wasn’t paid to have an opinion. I was given the opportunity to share my experiences about something.

The follow-on criticism is that if something is given to me that I’ll likely be positive about it. I understand this criticism.

4.) Again, I see your criticism here. But you’re pointing to one kind of post type: reviews. What if it’s just an experience? What if it’s something different, like Amex paying for posts about small business that have absolutely nothing to do with their card? Is it REVIEWS that bug you, or just the idea of money changing hands with regards to typing? Because B seems fishy. A, I can buy.

5.) In certain industries, this is strictly adhered to, but in others, not so much. Just a point. Oh, the appearance of impropriety. I imagine that my free experiences with GM are improper? Is it bad that they let me play with their cars, given I ended up writing about (and shooting video about) them? In that case, everything was free. It was just plain fun. But is it improper? (Seriously, asking. This isn’t a challenge.)

6.) We agree there. I just continue to disagree that writing for pay makes me less credible, provided it’s clear when I’m writing for pay. I seem to know lots of paid writers, and the only ones who get this little curly hair stuck in their mouth are journalists. I am not am not am not am not a journalist. Will never be. Will never pretend to be. Oh, unless the press pass gets me in somewhere cool.

I love these conversations, Ben.

@Tim – In NO part of my post do I liken sponsored content to advertorials. I think advertorials are usually pretty lame. They’re marketing material. I’m not a staff journalist. I’m not a journalist at all. I write. I continue to think sponsored posts aren’t cut from the same cloth as advertorials, which are required to be written from the marketing perspective.

Though Ben’s right that sponsored posts boost the chance that someone will write nicely about them, I still see the value of a non-advertorial piece. See, for instance, my take on eBillMe. It was a sponsored post and I still came out and said they needed to improve the service.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Chris I think your ‘full disclosure’ should also be given to companies that are asking you to write about their products. Tell them you will write an honest opinion.

The term buyer beware comes to mind. Great products will likely get a great review, dubious or not so stellar products, well you get the picture. I don’t see you reviewing MLM marketing schemes anytime soon.

I mean really if you write about something for pay, you should still be fair to your readers. Your audience is why brands want you to write about them, to reach your readers.

One of the reasons I read your blog is because its real, its about things, people, places, and relationships. Things I WANT to read about. More than just fluff or linkbait. Things that make sense.

Personally, I don’t read or care for reviews until its time to make a major purchase. Only then do i want to know what other people have said. I google I read. I want to hear normal people not a paid sponsorship. That’s just me, but I think other people are like that as well.

Real people that made decisions based on what you said about a product will feel duped if the article mislead them. Less readers, less paid writing gigs. No one benefits.

Ben has some valid points about companies buying opinions. For a long time Industry giants have engaged celebrities, professional athletes, and others as sponsors. Some of the numbers from Michael Jordans paid sponsorships spring to mind.

I imagine this is getting a lot of attention lately in our social/connected world. With everyone and their brother jumping on the twitter train, many companies will probably look to the celebs with lots & lots of followers.

They will offer large sums of money for favors. Nothing new there.

Just be true to yourself, your readers, and your ethics. Everything else will fall into place.

In traditional journalism pretty much every product review is tainted in some way by what we are talking about here.

My background is motor industry. Do you trust Jeremy Clarkson’s take on a car? Lots of people do. When we launched a car, we’d take Clarkson and another hundred journalists to Monaco or somewhere exotic, we’d let them drive it for a day, then we’d wine and dine them in the best hotels before returning them home in the chartered jet. When they arrived, they would each have a brand new model waiting for them at the airport, with a full tank of gas, and we’d encourage them to drive it for a couple of weeks.

This never stopped them from panning a bad car. When Clarkson tells us a car is good, most of us believe him. Why? Because we feel he has integrity. Integrity he has built up over time.

I don’t believe for a moment that Chris Brogan would tell me a crap product was good. I trust the guy, and know enough about him to believe he wouldn’t betray that trust.

The market will sort itself out. The guys (and there will be plenty of them) who take the money for money’s sake and spew out “advertorial” will lose their integrity and with it, their readers.

In motoring journalism terms they’ll end up on the Manchester Evening Echo, as opposed to BBC’s Top Gear.

Chris, thanks for your eloquent response. Since ethics like politics cannot be solved with one “right” point of view, perhaps the solution for bloggers is to use a simple economic trade-off. (1) How much will they earn this year from writing posts for hire? (2) Will doing so reduce their future value to employers or clients, hurting future fame/income/success?

I’ve made many mistakes in my career. Last year, I did one thing right: A CEO client called and asked me point blank, “Do you think the next wave of our ad campaign will work?” The campaign had been restructured several times and honestly I questioned it. Before I could think, I said, “No. The focus is wrong,” and explained why. So he killed it. We waiting months before the campaign was revised, our agency missed out on a boatload of revenue in the meantime … but now I have a very loyal client. He now trusts my opinion. He has since relaunched the campaign, and I think I’ll be working with that client for many years to come.

Giving up something in the short term to build authenticity in the long-term is a difficult choice. It’s one worth thinking about.

PS Yes, I dug your GM car visit.

Chris,

I thank you for replying back. I think you articulated your point well when replying back to Ben. Perhaps I rushed out my opinions before fine-tuning them, but I still respect your thoughts this.

No, I don’t think all blogs need to conform to a specific process. Personally, a blog is built on genuine, authentic and real conversation. Getting a vehicle manufacturer to let you drive cars for free isn’t bad because it yielded legitimate, useful and interesting editorial that supports your views. Reviewing a payment processor is legitimate and would render a chance for people to understand the dynamics involved when considering those “bill me later” services. There’s no harm in paying the bills when you fully disclose why you’re talking about a product and sharing honest opinions.

I wouldn’t put it past an advertiser looking for both a sponsored, positive review and backlinks on a blog. That’s where my angle on including N. Patel’s views comes in. The different in reading magazine advertising, is that ads are usually operated independently of the editorial.

I’m speaking from reading many sponsored reviews; many tend to pour a large amount of bias simply because the item is sponsored. The review itself often becomes skewed and not based on the merit of a product itself. Will it happen in all cases? No, but the practice itself is questionable. It’s only reasonable that the audience may hold the publisher’s credibility at stake when they endorse a product.

What I look for in a review online is legitimate product testing. Does a product meet up their claims? How well does it perform? Benchmark the customer service and share a few constructive criticism. You and I know that *every* product/service/experience always has deltas that we can all accept. (Besides, seeing a company representative respond to constructive criticisms HELPS engage the company as an authority on the subject, too.)

I think the type of sponsored review that you do is more relevant to your audience than the cookie-cutter ones found on PayPerPost. I’ll go out on a hunch that you’re probably pitched 1:1 by brands, instead actively looking to earn a few bucks by using services like PPP. There’s a difference. You demonstrate a more ethical means by full disclosure and maintain personal endorsement of such brands.

Thanks again for opening the forum on this topic. It’s got me and several other marketing folks thinking.

All the best,
Joe

I only skimmed all the comments so I apologize if someone’s already addressed this, but I wonder what your/everyone’s thoughts are about this story on the ABCNews site about bloggers being held liable for posts?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/AheadoftheCurve/story?id=7301845&page=

Do you know if there’s any truth to their assertion that the FTC is evaluating whether or not reviews by bloggers are in violation of advertising laws? The article sure makes the future of sponsored posts sound pretty grim.

Then there’s the disclosure thing: how much protection do disclosures really offer? I read another article about a guy who had a blog that basically slammed Goldman Sachs but was PLASTERED with disclosures about how he was not affiliated with them in any way, yet their lawyers are still all over him with cease and desist letters.

I am torn about the whole thing; on one hand, who doesn’t like getting free stuff to blog about? On the other, would I really be able to accept something for free then totally bash it if those were my honest feelings? Like what if every single person in the Fiesta thing just hated the car and bashed it? Would Ford really be ok with that? I honestly can’t see a company shelling out big bucks to put themselves in the public eye if they thought there was a chance that the whole thing could turn into a big hate-fest of their product.

Joe brings up the point that almost everyone on this thread is ignoring– credibility! This is the issue, Chris.

My problem with sponsored posts lies in 1) poor targeting (i.e. why is a PR blogger offerring their PAID opinion on the Ford Fiesta, and why would anyone with a brain be influenced by that) and 2) Shameless disregard for their audience by promoting anything under the sun for a buck. Inattention to either of the above results, for me, in the loss of credibility. In fact, this has been the case for several prominent blogger whom I no longer follow.

It’s really simple: If I’m interested in niche bloggers, I’m not following their blogs to listen to them promote a product that has nothing to do with their niche that brought me, and kept me, here in the first place. If I wanted to listen to a commercial, I’d tune into FM radio.

It’s not that you shouldn’t be able to make money off your blog (though there are dozens of great bloggers out there who don’t make a dime for their efforts); when money enters the equation, though, rationality and ethics shouldn’t fly out the window. I don’t know that it’s just about disclosure; if you look like a duck and you sound like a duck, does admitting it make you seem like any less a duck?

I follow Ted Murphey on Twitter. In fact, I communicate more with Ted than any other person in my stream. Ted’s a good guy; I trust him. I think IZEA is a great company. I use one of their products.

I don’t see any problem with sponsored posts, as long as there is disclosure.

@Brandon – and that’s a great point you make. I think that if a blogger – let’s use me as an example – started writing about any old thing that came along because it paid, I think the audience would vanish. If you see me reviewing MLM schemes, I expect you to all stampede to the door.

So credibility plus relevance, yes?

For instance, I was invited to be part of the Fiesta movement. Thing is, I’m not the right target. I’m a dad with two kids. The car might be the most amazing thing since sliced bread, but it wouldn’t fit my kids. So, I passed. I pass on opportunities every day because they don’t fit my community.

Make sense?

So Chris, how much will it cost me to change your mind about this?

Alex – Chris could waste the time what if-ing all the could have beens, or he can keep doing what he’s doing. Honestly, isn’t he the only one who can truly measure the success of his brand/business? Isn’t it he who determines whether it is moving in the direction he wants? Success means different things to different people, so if Chris feels he is successful at what he is doing, and he’s clearly not being given less speaking engagements, less work opportunities, etc. I don’t see why anyone else can attempt to say what he is doing is unsuccessful.

Let’s be real. How many people blogging out there have the amount of followers (I don’t just mean on twitter – those reading his blogs, too) and the amount of exposure in the blogging community (and mainstream media) as Chris Brogan has? We all know that statistically, more blogs fail then succeed. It’s just common sense to think that here is a guy who actively believes in what he is doing, whether his readers agree with it or not.

Chris is doing what he believes is working for him, and honestly he can measure if his brand/business is being affected by comparing how many speaking engagements/business opportunities he received last year to now. Sure, he might have missed out on a great opportunity, but I’d wager its due to schedule conflicts more than someone/some company not having respect enough to ask him to speak.

Furthermore, why is it okay for say…a sports star…to be given a product to wear/show off and he’s still an all American hero, but heaven forbid a blogger mentions any product they’ve been given or they’ve been allowed to test drive? It’s like death for the blogger apparently. My favorite Detroit Tigers get sunglasses, shoes, and plenty of other things in hopes they’ll mention the brand (or better yet, wear them) on television. Why is it okay for businesses to do this, but they can’t give anything to bloggers without the bloggers’ authenticity being compromised?

Hey Chris, as always some excellent insights through your post and follow-up comments. I don't have really any bias to bring to the discussion, but I thought I might share my own perspective on the matter. When we talk about brand mentions in social media, I like to think the real value is found in content that happens in an organic manner. By “organic”, I mean the kind of online mentions that comes from real consumer experiences and interactions with a brand, whether that be complimentary or demeaning.

Our day-to-day tasks are associated with monitoring mentions of brands on behalf of clients, and to some extent this means placing some kind of value assessment on the worthiness of that online mention. I won't get into the specifics, however we do look at the difference between mentions that happen naturally (i.e. from a consumer experience discussed in a post, whether that be in the comment section of a blog or YouTube post) versus those which are advertorial in nature.

The lines are continually blurring, and reading a dozen incidents from the thousands of consumer experiences on a rating section of a retailers Website, or going to a consumer portal that is designed primarily to rail on an industry or company are some examples of this, but sponsored posts seem to hve really have taken on a life of their own. One thing we know for sure is that people will research a company or product on the Internet before buying, and the enabler to that review process is search. Ultimately what will determine the future of sponsored posts will be the authoritative value that search places on the topic of discussion, and the vote on value assignment Web audiences place through active participation via replies or in the comment section.

Are brand mentions preferred over ads? At least one recent survey has provided some insight on this question. If I had a choice, I'd like to keep the two seperate in the way search results are displayed – organic results occupying most of the space on my screen with an area off to the top or right side for sponsored posts. Otherwise, when the two are found intergmingling in the wild, reading the disclosure disclaimer only after you've spent the 5 minutes reading the post is kind of like finding out that your favourite sports or entertainment celebrity doesn't even actually use the product they've spent years endorsing.

Joseph
@RepuTrack

Meeting Ted at SxSW was an eye opener. It gave him a chance to explain a bit about Izea and where they are headed. It provided fresh perspective on this marketing path.

Heck, I love the Ford Fiesta deal. What a way to get some buzz and share some fun. No hidden agenda there, just good old fashioned PR and marketing, but with the added bonus of tons of video, blogging, texting, tweeting and that on top. None of it a secret that they were giving away cars.

I want my piece of the action. Heck, I don't care so much about being paid, but I'd sure love to get products to review. I'm addicted to cool tech, and would have no bones about taking an new fangled radio, book reader, or automated ball cap to try out and play with in exchange for a blog post.

Loved the K-Mart and Sears events. Enjoyed Walmart's similar take on it. What's to lose?

Chris, as long as its disclosed, I'm on your side. I did almost a year's worth of blogging for an internet bank. I was anonymous, I was paid to pitch and it was all on their site. That was three years ago and we didn't get it right, but nothing was hidden. But it looks like I'm preaching to the choir here.

Anne Wayman – now blogging at http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com