Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
After my theoretical approach to paying/rewarding bloggers with cash or swag, I found myself to be in such a position recently with the arrival of two True Blood calendars and a Flight of the Conchords cd, both from HBO Asia. I blogged about both without much thought, but now that I’ve let it settle for a couple of days, I’ve decided to try and answer as objectively as possible: how much was I influenced by swag?
My answer is: minimally. Due to two reasons.
1) The products are a fit.
I write about blogger outreach here all the time, and have a regular Music Monday column over on my own blog, why wouldn’t I write about a direct mail effort or a music cd that I received? If I had received, say, a home gardening kit, it would definitely have been harder to talk about.
2) Agenda-setting instead of hypodermic needle
I believe receiving stuff like this is more agenda-setting (giving you a subject to think about), rather than a hypodermic needle (injecting you with their version of the “truth”). This is a popular mass media theory, where I might see reports on crime on the news, and think more seriously about crime in my area, but not necessarily accept the crime rates reported as true. It prompts me to think about a particular subject, but not to accept everything said as truth.
In this particular case, HBO got me thinking about their products, but nowhere did they try and say “this is the best stuff ever” nor try to tell me how awesome they are. I had a cd that which encouraged me to listen to them and come up with my own conclusions.
Would I have blogged about either True Blood or Flight of the Conchords otherwise? Maybe, maybe not. I am a big TV watcher, but vampire shows aren’t my thing. However, I am always on the lookout for new and exciting music. I think what this particular blogger outreach exercise has done is empower me to talk about them, regardless of how I feel. When I hear someone talk about FotC (as it randomly happened last Friday), it enables me to jump into the conversation and even offer to share the cd. While I’m not a fan of the vampire genre, if I hear someone talking about True Blood, I can always say “hey, you’d appreciate a copy of this calendar I got.”
Ultimately I think the result is to organically encourage conversations, positive negative or neutral. I hope to be in a position to carry out an outreach programme and ask bloggers how they felt about it after the fact someday!
Tags: agenda setting, direct mail, flight of the conchords, fotc, hbo asis, hypodermic needle, music cd, music monday, paying bloggers, swag, true blood
Posted in Singapore, blogger outreach, case studies, social media | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Awhile ago I posted a link to the Social Media Breakfast | Singapore forums where an interesting discussion was going on about compensating bloggers.
Farinelli kicks us off by asking:
- Should bloggers be rewarded? Payment isn’t the only way… free schwag? Review units to keep? What do you consider ethical and what do you not?
- Do famous bloggers deserve star treatment, and star rewards? People argue that objectivity is lost with payment, but should companies leave the option open for bloggers who wish to go down that path?
- If you pay a blogger to do an advertorial blog post, does anyone read advertorials anymore? Do they think its a waste of time, a sign of selling out and a turn off?
I’m going to speak generally and say that most people who took part in the conversation are concerned about objectivity being an issue when money comes into play, and rightfully so. Cullen puts it very well:
For me, I think the bottom line is when money starts to trump honesty then the money’s influence is unacceptable.
My personal point of view is that compensating bloggers is fine. I don’t necessarily like the idea of money changing hands, but I think freebies or trial copies with the option to purchase at a discounted price are okay. After all, bloggers are spending their precious time and effort (not to mention valuable blog real estate) to talk about you. There is opportunity cost involved!
I also feel the problem is the “expectation” that reviews should be good. No one has come out straight to say it, but inherently, if you get a review, it shouldn’t be saying bad things. That’s why ad-pull became an issue with magazines. Company X would pay for a couple of pages of ads, but the writers of the magazine might criticise them over something in another section of the magazine, and next month Company X takes their advertising elsewhere.
I think this has a mindset that has to be fixed, especially when it comes to bloggers. When you get involved with them (regardless of whether anything changes hands), it is a partnership. One where you (the company) takes the good and the bad. And if partnering with a blogger means getting feedback on what’s not fantastic with your product, it’s an opportunity to improve it, rather than an excuse to switch to another blogger who only says good things about you.
The discussion is far from over, there’s much more that can be said about compensating bloggers, it might be a great time for you to head over to the forum and chime in!
In the meantime, thanks Farinelli, Daniel, Brian, Hillary, Cullen, Claudia, Relax and Nicholas for really bringing some momentum to the topic! Looking forward to much more.
Tags: blogger outreach, blogger partnership, claudia.sg, cneil, farinelli, geeknomics, litford, paying bloggers, precious living, should companies reward bloggers, social media breakfast singapore, working with bloggers
Posted in blogger outreach, community | 13 Comments »
