Nathan Key

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Are 'Pay Per Post' Deals Morally Sound?

8/3/2009

 
My wife sent me a link today from a site that talks about making money blogging.

A bunch of the sites that were suggested were these "pay per post" deals where a company contacts you and asks you to do a positive review of their website or business and in return they pay you some lump sum.

I'm guessing that a setup like that would completely knock away any neutrality or objective eye that the blogger had which means that it's a little misleading to do something like that (unless there were a clear disclaimer, or if the blogger TRULY liked the site, movie, or merchandise before being contacted about it).

Then again, if you're going to make money on the blogosphere, you've gotta have advertising, or a product to sell, or some sort of setup like this. Otherwise, you're just a "Free"lancer like me who blogs in his free time and doesn't actually have as much time to research and write as I'd like.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
  • Are 'Pay Per Post' Morally Sound?
  • Do they violate trust?
  • If they do end up effecting to neutrality of the web (assuming they haven't already)- what are the ramifications of paid opinions on any website you visit?
  • Do you already filter websites assuming that the bloggers are being paid whenever they say something good (or bad) about another product or service?
Jamie Kite link
8/3/2009 01:04:17 am

It's funny you posted this, considering where I work. I absolutely believe that there is a right way to do sponsored content (paid blog posts, paid tweets, etc), but many content creators (e.g. bloggers) and advertisers prefer to keep the fact that they were compensated for a review under wraps.

Sponsored content should always be disclosed. And the advertiser should not be able to dictate the tone (positive/negative) of the review, if there is opinion expressed in the content. I don't think that there is any other way to do a sponsored review and maintain an ethical standard or reader trust.

The FTC is working on guidelines for disclosure now... You might want to look into those to see what legislation might be coming up for Truth-In-Advertising with respect to blogs and other social media sites.

Nathan link
8/3/2009 02:09:18 am

Jamie, I agree with you here!

I believe there's an itegrity issue at stake if we kept the advertising "under wraps" as you said. I'm not against "pay per post" entirely, but I think I'd personally have to have the freedom you spoke of to mention the item/website/merchandise/movie/ect on my own terms and in my own way before I'd feel remotely comfortable doing it myself.

FTP Blog link
8/4/2009 09:35:38 am

"Sponsored content should always be disclosed. And the advertiser should not be able to dictate the tone (positive/negative) of the review, if there is opinion expressed in the content. I don't think that there is any other way to do a sponsored review and maintain an ethical standard or reader trust."

Well said. Pretty much what I thought.
As much as we all have to eat, what I dislike is when bloggers try to be "sneaky" about paid reviews. I'd rather you tell me "hey I'm getting paid to review this. And these are my opinions on the matter," instead of "hey guess what I found today! You guys should REALLY try it. I mean REALLY."


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    About Nathan

    Nathan Key likes to think about faith and philosophy and talk about it with others. He lives with his family in New Hampshire. He doesn't always refer to himself in the third person.
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