A Personal Blog
Testing IZEA in the New Year
- Image via CrunchBase
Much like Aaron did a couple of weeks ago, I’m putting my audience on notice that I intend to test an upcoming IZEA promotion.
As Aaron mentioned in his post, over the last few years I’ve gotten to know Ted Murphy (even in the middle of all of the brew ha ha over paid post made during PayPerPost‘s inception) and have always found him to be a completely standup guy.
- Image by BenSpark via Flickr
I’ve hung out with Ted, had dinner with Ted, even (I think) done a panel with Ted. I’ve met with Ted’s investors, his team, his PR folk and given and received recommendations that have improved both of our companies and personal lives.
Given that I was one of the first folk in the blogging world to do sponsored posts in 2003/2004, my early issues with PayPerPost were basically twofold. The first was that disclosure wasn’t required (that changed long ago). The second was that when companies could buy links and stories, you fundamentally changed the structure of The Conversation by allowing corporations to insert themselves into it in an inauthentic way.
Obviously the first problem has been long since solved. But not only was it solved, nearly 2 years ago Ted and I came to see eye to eye on a very core principle we both hold: helping bloggers get as much profile, value and $ out of their blogging as possible.
Over the 2 years that followed I basically put the IZEA thing on hold, just hanging with Ted occasionally. b5 has done a few low-level things with IZEA (none involving paid posting), but really I’ve always intended to try something out.
Not only that, but over the last 2 years the blogging world has changed. There is now a “media blogosphere” made up of folk actively trying to make money without losing their authority made up of at least half a million bloggers. Corporations are now buying ads, buying links, flying bloggers out and so forth. Not only that, but most consumer companies now give tens of millions of dollars in free product to bloggers per year, most of which bloggers write about. The only difference with IZEA is that bloggers also get cash.
So the world has changed, how corporations interact with the blogging world has changed and lets face it – there is no longer a single “Conversation” taking place. For better or for worse, advertorials, paid posts, paid reviews, solicited reviews, etc are here to stay. And since they are here to stay the most responsible thing we can hope for is a company to step in the middle and actually ensure companies do their part and stay ethical, bloggers do their part and stay ethical and that the entire thing is conducted in a transparent and professional manner.
This Christmas Ted sent me a quick email on a promotion for Coke Zero that actually resonated with me. I’m a Diet Coke/Coke Zero drinker, the promotion involved a flash game (which is decent), and I blog about both the health side of the equation and the gaming side of the equation often enough that Coke wasn’t really buying a post – and the guidelines are such that all they’re really getting is my unbiased opinion.
- Image via Wikipedia
So this week (sometime, not entirely sure when), I’ll be writing up at least one post on the promotion, the program, and doing a giveaway of a bunch of Coke/DietCoke/CokeZero swag that the b5crew have been coveting for the last week.
The post will be clearly labelled as sponsored, you’ll (as when I used to do sponsored posts pre-IZEA) get my honest opinion, and I’ll fully disclose what I receive for doing the post.
Realistically, though, the reality is that what IZEA is doing is what is soon going to be absolutely needed: a group guiding corporations through the process so they do things in an ethical and professional manner, a group guiding bloggers through the process in an ethical and professional manner and a group that ultimately matches the right bloggers with the right corporations.
The notion that bloggers will somehow trust each other is now dead, given that even when bloggers DO disclose they are being called into question, so an outside entity is required in some way/shape/form, and for now I’m good with giving IZEA a chance since they’ve been at this for so long – which means they’ve learned a tonne if for no other reason than they’ve had the time to make the mistakes.
So I’m testing this for 2 reasons. The first and easiest is to see if there is any backlash from my audience to this. The second is to try and find a way to make this work in the blog world, and generically to get first-hand knowledge of something I’m often asked about while speaking.
Your opinions are of course more than welcome (positive and negative).
FYI: I’m also testing Zemanta, hence the images ;-)
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Jeremy Wright on December 29, 2008 at 8:11 am, and is filed under Blogging. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 3 years ago
Seriously? Why?
Look, here’s the thing. ANYONE that does Izea/PayPerPost sponsored stuff does it purely for making money. It doesn’t add credibility to your blog, it doesn’t increase the audience to your blog (beyond all the other people that use the service coming by to slap you on the back), and it certainly doesn’t add valuable content to the blog. All it does it take up space on the blog for you to write something for a pitiful sum of money when your time could be much better spent working on great content to attract even more readers and then make money from a real advertising service.
Don’t do it. If you want to make money blogging then do what all the big names do – write great content and then capitalize on that from a more reputable, and ultimately profitable, source.
about 3 years ago
John, that’d be true if it weren’t that ad rates are so abysmal that a single solid IZEA post can produce more revenue than ads for an entire month.
And, really, which would you rather have? 10-20 ads on a page or 1-2 posts per month which are still my opinion but for which the catalyst is capitalistic in nature?
about 3 years ago
Totally disagree with John – here’s why: it’s all well and good to say “oh no! You must only be doing this for the money!” but let’s look at the fact that Ted and IZEA have pretty much been starting this whole process by taking it to bloggers who *don’t* need the money – but will honestly give their opinion paid or not.
The point is that we’re going to have advertorials – but how do we, as a community, help to define the boundaries so that they are done in a transparent, honest way?
If those who lead in Social Media aren’t willing to step up and try to see how it goes, who is supposed to?
I’ll be interested to see how your own Coke Zero experiment goes, Jeremy. I know from talking with the Coca Cola guys out in Bentonville that the Coke Zero market is the fastest growing soft drink line in 2008 – because of men choosing to adopt it. Given that usually women determine where grocery money is spent (better than 70% of the time) that means it’s appealing with men on a level that gets them to influence the shopping dollar. That says a lot to me about both the brand and the product.
Interested to see what your opinion ends up being on how the campaign goes!
about 3 years ago
Am I supposed to believe that John Gruber is bullshitting his readership when he says thanks to so and so for sponsoring Daring Fireball this week and that he uses their product/service and it’s great!
If you have the credibility to begin with, I have no problem with you sharing insight into the products/services that you support, and getting paid for that recommendation/disclosure.
In the end, if you’re going to say you believe in something that sucks or that isn’t true to you, you’ll eventually be called out, and both your credibility and readership will decline.
Sounds like a good balance to me and a good way to move form blogging for fun to supporting your writing, which should in turn improve the quality of the writing since you’re more likely to devote time to something that actually helps you pay the rent or earn you swag.