Are “paid for” evangelists harming blogging?
My friend Andy Abramson has written an excellent post regarding our duty as bloggers to be transparent.
I think its an important piece given the response I got to the below tweet on Sunday.
Everyone that responded were 100% sure that I should out the company.
Well unfortunately the person that shared the information with me will not allow me to publish and I have to honour their wishes.
“By practising transparency those bloggers with conflicts of interest can rise above the fray and establish a higher degree of credibility. But for those that don’t, and choose to hide in the shadows, it becomes very hard not only for you, but for us, both bloggers and as communications outreach professionals to really understand why the story ran as it did, or didn’t”
I think this is the important part, I have again seen a blog this morning where no transparency exists and from a site that I have been offered “editorial” on numerous occasions.
We are all aware of “paid to post” bloggers or evangelists as one of them described themselves to me recently before being told to “politely fuck off” but thankfully this practice is being refuted by us the bloggers.
I am guilty myself of being an evangelists in that I constantly talk up stuff I love, QIK, Nespresso, Mobivox, Jawbone, Rebtel and numerous others but my conscience is totally clear as not one cent or gift has ever changed hands, no posts were sponsored. This is probably the reason why I will never put ads on my blog.
So what do you think?
17 comments...What do you think?
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- Flixwagon pay bloggers, non disclosure from bloggers or Flixwagon
- On classifications and typologies (3) — Shefaly Yogendra
There are well establishing principles in journalism and politics about declaring interests. If blogging is to maintain its position as an alternative source of journalism it must adhere to the same rules.
Pat
When the blogger is being paid by someone else ie if they are (let’s say for example) employed by a research analyst firm like Forrester, Redmonk or AMR then they should disclose that the product or person they are blogging about is a client (as is the practice by financial analyst firms now). Then we know.
Chris
i’d hate to think I was being lied to on a blog. Fine you can feign, you can promote and be an ambassador but if you’re not genuine about it, then you’re wasting your time and mine. It’s great to be paid for blogging but you owe it to your audience and commenters to disclose this fully. In fact your honesty about that would probably make it more interesting.
A Chara Pat,
fully agree. I have things that I like in my trade [coffee also one of them]. I dislike people who ‘pimp’ their own products via my blog – rather than say ‘hey what do you thin mate’.
Equally, paid to do, is not from the heart and therefore not individual and from the heart. I love Douglas Bookshop [unit 18 douglas Village shopping centre etc... ] but thats because the lady who owns it is really nice, has ‘good’ books and is good natured – but – she does not pay me or give me discount or free books.
Thats more me paying me to say how great I am.
Its not true.
To answer – paid for evangilists [in my opinion] are harming blogging.
great article, well versed and well done
peter
I agree with the comment above.
Bloggers are free to express what ever opinions they want and have absolutely zero accountability. As such it doesn’t really make a difference to me if they are making money from it by effectively just marketing a service / product.
I believe that in order for there to be a genuine problem with the above scenario the blogger in question would have had to present themselves to the market entirely as an impartial observer presenting facts and avoiding personal opinions.
Sorry I should have said I agree with the first comment – others got in ahead of me =)
Wonder if this will create a wave of distrust in the social media sphere? I know that when I’m looking at posts, comments and reviews I’ll be wondering if they’re tainted by vested interests. I’m not going to argue your decision to not reveal the information but some indication of the scale of the practice would be useful.
I agree anything decietful in blogging is bad. As peter said though, there is a grey area where some people become evanglists for people they know and have a vested interest in without money changing hands. Do me a favour and ill do you a blog post. I like to blog about people i know and like doing well, but always try to keep it honest and factual as possible.
I reckon with time people will become “street smart” and look twice at who they are taking advice from. At the moment a lot of paid posters do so very badly, “here’s why this is the best” etc – followed by an affilate link at the end of the article, but unfortunately with time they’ll get even more cunning.
After thought – I wonder will posters who disagree start to ask if a post is for vested interest sake?
One of the blogging rules is never sensor a negative comment.
thanks ronanob – to put it back in contex… me pimping ride on mowers versus my favourite plant or a good childrens gardening book. [book shops are generally quite poor with regard to 'good' horticultural books apart from the big sellers] I was her only customer that sunday! shes no multinational – and takes pride in what is simply a great shop. The only other great one I know is a second hand one in donegal
Back to the point – nespresso away Pat – but it does come from the heart and paid or unpaid it is without subliminal messages
Surely the issue turns on honest, full declaration of interests. In the absence of such declarations being universal currency, readers of blogs are entitled to treat every blogger with equal contempt and cynicism. As usual, caveat emptor applies.
a while back i was asked to contribute an occasional post to a VOIP related blog. at first i was quite interested. when i was told that i would receive half of the google advertising income i was a bit surprised; as i had never really thought much about the click ads on the site and had never thought of it as a ‘for profit’ operation. i was not motivated one bit by the idea of profiting. i decided to turn down the offer.
i’ve been asked to write [blog]; for an architecture mag – i said i’d do it for free – others will pay however for the honour [?]. I write anyway for a few publications – but the difference is again between an advertorial/ self promotion and simply writing for those who wish to read –
I doubt anyone could suggest that i take it to the extreme that it might be considered an overhead or a method of achieving sales. Here is where Pat using Qik driving the wrong way through Cork and the illogic versus fun makes this post worthwhile and warranted.
Are they that clever?
Are we so dumb?
I don’t think so. I think your average blog reader has a highly developed nose for being hussled.
I think we demand to be entertained and engaged and most importantly get a sense of reality from a post. By that I mean that there is a real person expressing a real opinion about something they have are real feeling about.
You can tell pretty quickly when that s not happening.
I have put some comments into some of the blogs that you would be familiar with, explaining/describing my true experiences of a certain mobile network only to find them not posted. I think it is taking the libel issue a tad too far.