One of my all-time movie faves is “Last of the Mohicans,” because it's a classic film about pre-Revolutionary America, because it's beautifully photographed, and because it has cannons so Stuff Blows Up. In one scene, the colonists are negotiating the terms under which they'll ally as citizen-soldiers with the British army to fight the French. “You got yourself a militia, colonel,” their leader says.
I've been thinking about those volunteers in recent weeks as developments occur in the blogging-for-money arena. Getting paid or rewarded for writing about something — a product, a service, an event or idea — is shaping up as a contentious issue in this sector. And rather than looking for a volunteer militia, plenty of companies are deciding it's more cost-efficient to go out and hire mercenaries.
They used to call enlisting in the British army “taking the king's shilling.” Emphasis on the word “shill.”
As a journalist, I don't profit at all by what I write, only by the fact that I write. I don't invest in companies I might write about; I don't accept trips or any other benefit. I get a few gifts at Christmas. This year, I got a box of Harry and David pears and other goodies — not from Harry and David. I kyped a pear, then put the rest in the break room, where they were enjoyed by the staffs of Direct's sister magazines.
So what to make of companies like PayPerPost.com, which offers to pay bloggers to post about its advertiser clients? The company launched last June without any kind of policy requiring disclosure among its participating bloggers. That changed in December, when PayPerPost began directing bloggers to advise readers that they accept sponsorship money.
But the requirement falls far short of strictness. Bloggers can simply post a loosely worded notice that they “may” take money for posting. And they can post it pretty much anywhere on their site, in a typeface or format that would make herbal supplement ads look like models of full disclosure.
PayPerPost founder and CEO Ted Murphy was quoted in the press as saying his company didn't want to handcuff bloggers to a specific format such as disclosing exactly which posts are paid for by advertisers and which come from within his or her soul. “It is up to the advertiser and blogger to decide what form of disclosure works best for them,” he said.
Apparently PayPerPost's only responsibility was to set “best practice” guidelines, and then hike the cost of advertisers' minimum bids from $1 to $5 to cover the administrative costs of this new rule.
Many bloggers and online marketing watchers are up in arms about the ethical issues, and they should be. Wal-Mart and its PR agency got trashed last year for mounting a sponsored blog that didn't reveal its five-figure sponsorship. In December Microsoft came in for some lumps for sending out hot-spit Acer laptops loaded up with the new Windows Vista operating system. And PayPerPost now has a half-dozen imitators.
Makes me wish I'd taken another pear.
But there's no rule that ethical wrongs occur only above a set dollar amount. Someone who hides a $20 payment is just as much in violation as someone who hides a 64-bit, dual core $2,000 “gift.” In fact, one reason for fighting undisclosed small payments to bloggers is that the ethical red line only seems to creep up, never down. If a $20 payout is OK, why not $100? Or $1,000, if an advertiser thinks one post to a blog's audience is worth that much?
And that last question may contain the saddest fact about this blog payola flap. It's becoming clear that to many advertisers, what bloggers say about their products isn't anywhere near as important as the organic search boost they get from being mentioned in a bunch of blogs, usually with links back to their Web sites.
In fact, SponsoredReviews.com, one of a handful of PayPerPost clones that have arisen in the last six months, explicitly touts improved search engine rankings as one of its main benefits for advertiser clients.
Face it, bloggers. Forget the citizen-journalist crap. Lose the argument that as a volunteer expert who has invested time in getting to know your subject and audience, you deserve a small recompense for your efforts. Except at the “A-list” level of big-name bloggers, you're being bought and sold wholesale to advertisers who simply want your search marketing mojo. So you're not even really selling out, since your sponsors basically don't care what you say. You're being used. Snookered.
If you want to shill for those types, go ahead. Personally, I've lost my appetite for that juicy pear.
NL
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