Turn on any talk radio station you’re likely to hear one of the on air personalities giving a testimony for an advertiser. Bloggers, in my mind, are very similar to talk show hosts; they share their opinion, have a dedicated following, usually focus on one subject area and always seem to go off point. But how do you handle bloggers posting sponsored messages?
Today Forrester released a research brief that advises marketers to pay bloggers to post about their products. They do note that there should always be transparency.
Sponsored posts are something a company here in Orlando called IZEA has been navigating the icy waters of sponsored posts for a couple of years now. They have had some backlash from the blogging community but it seems to be catching on and everyone (bloggers and advertisers) is quite happy.
Sponsored posts have implications for newsrooms. If you haven’t already, at some point you will have a company ask you about pay-per-post. It’s very easy for us, as journalists, to scoff and turn away. But I think some newsroom bloggers are like talk radio hosts and they can bring in extra revenue by starting up sponsored conversations. By no means am I suggesting that a city council blog write a sponsored post about a mayoral candidate but the entertainment or gossip blogger talking about a new restaurant that opened up might not hurt anyone. It might help us bring in a little bit more money and keep our doors open a little longer.
No related posts.
I’ve always had problems with this concept for newspaper blogs to adopt. I think readers look to restaurant critics for objective analysis of what they thought of the food and service. Once money is exchanged, then that may unduly influence the reviewer or give readers the impression that the reviewer was told what to say. Considering the downhill quality of the paper as it sheds staff and becomes smaller, its credibility is all it has left. Once you sell that, then Zell has done his job at fully Clear Channeling the Tribune Co.
If you’re still on the fence about this, think about how tacky it is in the print product to see an ad that tries to look like a news article–an advertorial. Why would they do that? It’s because aligning your product or service as closely as possible to the authoritative voice of the newspaper lends your product some credibility. Obviously it’s a win for the advertiser, but what’s in it for the reader or the paper besides money? Nothing.
Corey,
I wanted to put the idea out because I think the usual argument of Journalism ethics isn’t the real reason we wouldn’t do something like this, but rather that it would hurt our brand.
But what if it wasn’t the outlet’s main brand. For example maybe the alternative weekly or something similar.
I think we have to at least be open to discussing these possibilities and make decisions on what is the best thing to do and not just do what we have done for years because it’s what we know.
When I see companies use sponsored posts as a way to advertise it makes me wonder why they are so desperate. You may not feel like anyone harm is being done, but there should be a clear line between content and advertisements. Any attempts to confuse readers by blurring that line is not just tacky, but unethical as well. Even with full disclosure, I would be reluctant to use this kind of an ad for my own business. There’s just too much downside for the incremental value that you get from fooling the reader with less than honest endorsements.
i wonder how much .66 per share common stock “hurts your brand”.
?
man, these purported “local media companies” are getting “hosed” just like their newspaper buddies.
goog was down 4% today, amazon 3% and apple 1% while i watched station groups take 15-28% hits.
truly sad.
That line can be crossed very, very quickly – even unintentionally and it can create a backlash.
My station has a twitter feed that has slack off of late. When it was really active by folks in the newsroom, they would post “tweets” to various online sites they found that were cool in their eyes. Some of those sites happened to be to online merchants for whatever reason.
One reporter here setup a “tweet-up” within the community and we got rightfully slammed by various community members for the links posted in our twitter feed. Our followers thought those companies were paying us to post those links and there was an unintentional perception that they were “sponsored”.
I think many viewers (especially younger) believe that we’re always trying to sell them something anyway. So perhaps there is opportunity for this. Maybe if you have a car blog, or a skiing blog in Denver, or a gardening blog. Parenting blog? Sports blog?
Would I allow this in the morning anchor blog? 5pm anchor? political reporter? No.
I do a blog, and am a special projects reporter with a nightly segment called “Good Question.” Would it be appropriate for me to have a sponsored post– totally transparent? I don’t know. I also think it’s worth thinking about.
It’s almost comical how short sighted many bloggers are. Most of them could not have and did not even predict themselves the “rise of the blogosphere” (including the vaunted Tracy Record whose own posts about it claim that she started it as a personal site but that through demand and the failure of local media it grew exponentially). Now, many of those same people predict what will happen next, or want to “offer advice” to media companies.
The truth is that complacency and a virtual monopoly that once existed for news organizations no longer does. It has become a much more open playing field.
But don’t think that the remaining media companies will remain clueless forever. There are a substantial number with enough financial wherewithal to remake themselves and go directly after what bloggers do. There’s nothing unique about their efforts. They are just willing to work 18 hour days because they own it. But nothing in what even the best blogs offer daily indicates that news about car wrecks and coffee shops closing is particularly compelling for a wide audience.
The internet is a medium of both utility and entertainment. News organizations lost that focus some time ago. But it’s coming back in a different way. I won’t make any predictions. I’ll just say as I’ve said before, it doesn’t pay to be smug.
#5
It’s important to point out that had it not been for the tweet up and your stations openness with the community you would not have learned about this thinking from your followers. The important part of blogging and even sponsored posts is transparency. Your tweet up and twitter account do just that.
Matt, back to the “hurting the brand.” I don’t think there’s any part of a newspaper’s Web site that can easily be separated from a connection to the paper’s business as a journalistic enterprise.
What makes the paper’s brand so powerful is its credibility and the reach of that credibility into every facet of the community’s life. Just because a sports or entertainment blog is not city hall coverage doesn’t mean we play loose with journalism in the context of the paper’s brand.
If you want to play loosey goosey with the rules and still make money for the company, then do it under the umbrella of Metromix or a monthly city magazine.
In Orlando, there’s this monthly aspirational magazine called Central Florida Lifestyle distributed freely in the mail that actually sells its cover. Naturally, one month there was a cover photo of some cosmetic surgeons complete with a staff written story and in an obscure spot was an explanation that it was a paid-for story. I talked to the editor about that, and she said a paid-for cover doesn’t happen every month, but now, I’m suspicious of everything in that magazine.
All it takes is one instance of this vague sense of transparency that will make people question your publication. News organizations have enough of a problem with people thinking you’re for the left or right. Why sully it with people thinking even your soft news is questionable?
The one thing I can’t stand is paying clients who think they’re entitled to news coverage because they advertise with us, and then cry and moan when we try and explain that it’s not part of the deal. Drives me up the wall.
Do a little research and look back in the history of newspapers and you’ll find columnists that would insert a comment on a snuff or some other product and if my information is correct (I only began in papers in the early 50s) they would submit clips to the company with the product and receive small payments.
This may be an ‘urban myth’ but look back in some papers in the late 1800s or early 1900s.
Maybe its true, what goes around, comes around. By the way Paul Harvey did the radio ‘reader ads’ very well but still had some interesting news items in his reports.