Selling Out
There’s nothing wrong with using your blog to make money. If you want to make imprints of your penis in playdough and sell it for $999 it’s cool. If someone is willing to pay you for that small of an imprint then there’s no reason you shouldn’t take their money. However, I do see a problem with doing posts about new products and services without telling your readers WHY you are writing about the topic. Whether you are being paid a flat fee, a free product or an affiliate sale, I personally think you should tell this to your readers about the compensation. If your a blogger with an audience, people trust what you say. Don’t abuse that trust by guiding people towards a product without giving them the information that your post may be tainted by compensation of some type.
To Blogosphere Readers: If you start seeing a whole bunch of posts about a particular product or service you can rest assured that at least some of them are written due to some type of compensation. Some products/services are great and some are terrible. Don’t just trust what a blogger writes. Do your due diligence before spending your hard earned money.
Too many newcomers are just believing every single word of the “gurus” and will jump on every product as soon as they are told about…
When they realize that this may be a sale speech by their “gurus” and start questioning their motivation, they may not be newcomers anymore and have achieved one first step toward their own success!
*cough* ppv spy *cough*
You know who else agrees with you? The FTC.
Haha I wrote a post about the PPV Spy that had my honest opinions about it the day it was launched and had like 5 people send me emails ‘How much did you get paid for that’. The answer of course being $0 with no aff links.
All the same, there is a difference between pitching something and writing about it. Unfortunately everyone knows this…so they try and make their pitch sound like their opinions. Then everyone gets pissed. I think I got like 4 emails about the same product and saw at least 2 blog posts that were just aimed at making a commission.
Sometime, blogger also writes about good or popular products. That’s how viral marketing works :).
Sometimes bloggers motives are not always what you think either. I’m going to use my blog as an example. I wrote the post before i knew there was an affiliate program. I like to keep my blog up-to-date with affiliate news no matter what it is.
About an hour after is when i learned i could add my own affiliate links, and why not. It’s a free couple hundred dollars. The post was written either way.
My end point is, it’s not solely about commission. It’s more about keeping up with anything that’s “big news” in the affiliate industry. Commission comes second. If commission is first you’ll have a shitty audience anyways and the whole point of your blog will be pointless.
Theres a difference between a blatant blind eyed promotion and an honest review.
Your audience should be used to YOUR style either way. That is, of course, if you have an audience. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, if you have true fans, a disclaimer probably wouldn’t hurt sales at all.
Being fully transparent is the best way to ensure loyalty from your readers.
I hear ya, I see lots of ppv posts popping up, some of which make me raise my eyebrow
Great post. Some of the most recent posts across our industry should have been labeled “Advertisement” at the top. They amounted to nothing but a list of bullet points and embedded video copied directly from the sales page. Followed, of course, by an affiliate link.
Ideally blog authors should try and take a cue from the best practices of journalists. If they don’t, they’re doing their readers a disservice.
Its no even funny how the pseudo “superaffiliates” are promoting products like that for XXX$, when they pretend they are making xxxx to xxxxx$ per day.
Should just call it out PPVSPY PPVSPY
Good post. Another thing is that a lot of bloggers write about someones product because it’s their buddies thing. They might not even know anything about the product, but write about about it to help their ‘bro’.
As with anything you need to take everything you read with a grain of salt. That being said, the readers that can see through your BS will be less likely to return.
^^This
how is this different from promoting shady cpa offers that you would never buy? shady is what shady does
Way to call out the lameness of the blogosphere on this one. I saw 1 post on it and thought wow that sounds pretty cool, but after reading like 5 I wanted to turn in my Trafficvance account. *Shiver*
These posts will only hurt their reputation in the long run.
Your content will determine your audience. Big reason not to sell out on your blog is if you want to connect with your PEERS. On the other hand if you don’t give a shit about connecting with peers using your blog, you can go the John Chow route and peddle the bejesus out of everything.
I think you just gave me a great idea! But… I’m going to need LOTS of playdough. Haha
JV…hahaha. I didn’t know you were that blessed. =)
Happy Holidays AdHustler!
sometimes i did’t know how to make people impress people with what i’m doing. i find it is difficult to attract people. i don’t know what should i do.