Forrester Says Paying Bloggers is OK Provided There are Disclosures

Forrester Research is out with a new brief this morning by analysts Sean Corcoran, Jeremiah Owyang and Josh Bernoff that says that sponsored conversations on blogs - akin to what how Chris Brogan partnered with KMart - are going to become more commonplace. Further, they recommend the tactic provided that there are clear disclosures all around.

Sponsored posts are nothing new. Although the tactic always raises a fair amount of controversy. Daring Fireball, one of the most popular Mac blogs, regularly runs sponsored posts inside its feed. Techmeme has them on the site too. However, where these are different is that they act more like advertorials. Where it gets prickly is when bloggers themselves write about their personal experience with a product (usually balanced) in exchanged for compensation.

Forrester makes five recommendations in the brief: mandate disclosure, ensure freedom of authenticity, partner with relevant blogs, don't talk and walk away. All good advice. Further, as you can see from the chart below they sit sponsored conversations somewhere between advertising and PR in the matrix.

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

The report misses something, however. This is nothing new. Magazines have run advertorials for years. And radio stations run promotions where the DJ gets involved. What is new is that on many of these sites the editor and publisher are the same individual. There are no hard church/state boundaries as there are with other media.

The way to get around this is to write and submit your own content as a sponsored post. Have the blogger run the copy but with an advertorial label. This has worked in magazines for years. 

Further, I would suggest working with an organization that represents bloggers and has experience running such programs - such as Federated Media. In addition, sponsored conversations work best when you integrate tactics across the spectrum that Forrester has here. Sometimes, earning media can lead to additional opportunities to get to know the personalities behind a blog and then additional opps. down the road.

However, on the whole, I agree that we're going to see more of this in the future. I am hopeful that everyone, publishers and sponsors, will bring their ethical A-game.

Comments

[Robin Grant (Managing Director]

Hi Steve

I'd say Forrester miss the important point that sponsored posts (like advertorials) don't generate genuine word of mouth (as people can see straight through them, whether they are clearly labelled or not).

This is very different to the genuine word of mouth that can be generated by a well planned and executed blogger outreach campaign.

More on this from me here:http://wearesocial.net/blog/2009/01/panasonic-influencer-campaign-ces/

[Peter Kim]

And I wonder if sponsored posts can ever truly be objective. Let's face it - if Brogan, Jaffe, or Brazell panned their paying sponsors, would the next advertiser want to include them in a campaign? Doubtful. Surely that influences the way these posts are written.

[Edward O'Meara]

This really cracks me up. Who doesn't believe that Analysts make their living off of Sponsored activities - reports, roundtables, events, speeches, presentations, story quotes?

Over my career I have many, many times been encouraged by an Analyst account manager to purchase strategy sessions and sponsor specific activities in order to properly "educate" analysts and receive feedback, either published or for use in published materials. While there may not be a "guarantee" of favorable coverage, it sure helps when you have the first spin and the last word.

[Wendy Piersall]

We are definitely going to see more of it, because the metrics are emerging to prove sponsored content works:

http://www.wendypiersall.com/influencer-marketing-case-study-kmart-holiday-hoopla-contest/

And I completely agree with Edward - few businesses don't rely on some sort of sponsored endorsements. Referral fees, product placement, and celebrity endorsements have been around for decades (centuries, even, as Olympic athletes were paid to use products in ancient Greece!).

And to Peter's point, I once received a free (but not inexpensive) camera to review and I thought it was a piece of crap. I offered to send it back to the agency and not write the review, but they (impressively) asked that I write it anyway. Influencers aren't willing to ruin a good reputation by shilling crap, nor by pissing off brands, either.

[Fred H Schlegel]

While the ethics of content sponsorship and 'advertorial' publishing have been implemented reasonably well in traditional media - there was a sort of structural distance between the 'journalists' and the sponsorship. With the collapse of traditional editorial structures this distance no longer exists for any but the largest blog publishing groups.

In this new era, it is interesting that sponsors may need to be the standard bearers for independent speech out of their own self interest especially in a time of economic stress when gifts, traffic assistance, and small amounts of compensation might unconsciously, or consciously, sway struggling bloggers.

[Don]

So how is this different than having a podcast, where an analysts speaks on concepts, trends, and/or survey information, but is not endorsing a vendor's offering and then the vendor follows to speak about their offering, and how it addresses the opportunities, issues identified by he analyst?

[Tyler LeCompte (User-Generated]

Hi Steve,

Good piece with excellent visuals to back up the over theme.I think that corporate sponsorship of Word of Mouth Marketing tools such as blogs or video websites are OK, as long as there is total transparency to the effort.I am in a similar position as discussed with sponsored blogging with my company, which is called MeHype. We are developing a similar business model using User-Generated Video versus blog content.We are new members of WOMMA, and will be applying all their ethical codes and best practices to be sure we meet everyone's expectations for our service.I would like to see you work up a graph similar to the one above but focused on UGC Video Content and its pros & cons...Wanna give it a shot?Thanks again.

[Peter I.]

Bloggers become popular for their editorial voice and their ability to market their content through social channels. This, over time, builds trust. Some blogs, like TechMeme, are natural places for sponsored content and it doesn't degrade the overall editorial direction. However, when people like Chris Brogan slip in a paid post about KMart it lies in strict contrast to the culture of blogging. You're expecting one kind of content and having something else thrust on you. You read it because you trust the blogger and it's only noteworthy because it's out of place with the normal content. If this blogger wrote about experiences with brands like KMart all the time, would you read them? Sure, the blogger has every right to do this and simple disclosure gives the reader the choice not to read sponsored content but my point is that it degrades what bloggers do as a whole and it therefore not ethical. There are plenty of ways to monetize content ethically but when sponsored content becomes accepted by the culture as whole, it will hurt he value of the honest editorial voice that was so instrumental in its growth.

[Wendy Piersall]

Peter, Chris didn't write about this on his ChrisBrogan.com business blog, he wrote the sponsored post on Dadomatic, where the post fit in much better with the rest of the content. I also did the same, blogging about it on a different blog than my regular blog.

I believe this is important for bloggers who want to do paid posts, yet also maintain editorial control over their content. I turned away lucrative opportunities for years until I finally realized I could just create a new blog on my blog network where sponsored content would be appropriate.

Mom bloggers have been doing this for years, and have been way ahead of the curve. They built up dual followings on their personal blogs and on their review/contest blogs. Smart bloggers don't want to dilute their brands, but also don't want to leave money on the table, either.

[Ben Israel]

Hi Steve,

My only (and grave) concern here is that we will see a trend of bloggers demanding to be paid or compensated when approached by companies - even when the content is valuable or exclusive.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Steve Rubel]

Ben, I don't think we'll see this. There's too much risk that it would getout and hurt their credibility. Plus marketers won't want to work with suchbloggers.

[Pete Blackshaw]

All this is a big slippery slope. What's missing from the Forrester grid is another column entitled "Likelihood for Consumer Confusion." The whole notion of transparency and disclosure often gets lost in the migration of social media and blog content from original post to, say, search results, or even, closer to the latest rage, "retweeting." Moreover, we're in the age of mash-ups, conversational "grafting," and other slicing and dicing or original source. This only compounds the challenge. The conversation here is an important one, the issue of compensating bloggers is a fair one, but the ultimate road-map for getting this right has yet to emerge.

- Pete Blackshaw

[John Sullivan]

I better hurry up :) People are getting closeBloggers needs reliable contracts to align witha win win situation. Yes Google will try a smack downbut there will be enough money that your Brand as a bloggerwill make page rank irrelevant ;)Also I bet alot more bloggers go do followI'm looking for a 6 this update around St Pattys Dayon a blog 1 yr old :)thanksstumbled twitted all thatPeace

[Gerard]

I'm not convinced this really has legs. I can see it happening here and there but I don't see how this can really overtake the blogging world.

There seems to me to be a major difference between a magazine or newspaper (read: relatively faceless business) having advertorials and a blog (read: personal, usually associated with one known person) and I don't believe the audience will take well to this overt business intrusion at the blog level. If you want to be similar to a magazine or newspaper then call yourself something other than a blog.

Right now, the sense of trust and independence is what attracts large amounts of people to specific blogs (e.g. Brogan, Godin, Rubel). If this begins to get muddied up with sponsored/paid posts (even negative ones), the trust level will drop and the readers will go to those who have not taken money. I don't care how independent anyone says they are, once you start taking money the relationship changes. It's the main reason magazines like Consumer Reports do not get in bed with the folks they review.

[Ryan Adami]

^ HIGHLY RELEVANT COMMENT!

Wendy, you make a great point here. Obviously this topic has strong arguments on both sides, but it’s the blog content and its followers that really determine the appropriateness of sponsored posts. The second factor would be reputation management for the individual behind the blog.

I follow many blogs including those with personal, educational and product related content. As long as the post keeps relevant to the content of the blog it shouldn’t seem too out of place to followers. However, if 100% of the posts are educational and they decide to post in a product review, relevant or not, it’s going to look funny.

On the other hand, if this educational blog has a monthly product review section, relating to the educational material, it would fit. Take a blog discussing Pay per Click strategy as an example. The editor could have a section for honest reviews of products and services related to PPC marketing. As long as it has VALUE to the blog followers it’s going to resonate whether it’s paid or not.

The real issue is with key influencers who get greedy by monetizing their following through irrelevant or dishonest content. The beauty is that unethical spamming seems to work itself out. Followers will start to ignore these key influencers and their reputations will be diminished. Not to mention that the sponsoring companies could experience the negative viral effect from upset consumers.

The best bet for key influencers who can’t naturally work in sponsored content is to create separate entities within their network. While this might not capture the entire following, it should have less negative consequences. If people follow you online, they trust your opinions. Give them the opportunity to subscribe to new content!

Ryan AdamiInternet Marketing SpecialistFollow me on twitter . . .

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Steve thanks for this, you're right this is nothing new.

I've started a running list of sponsored conversations (including other industries), see here

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/03/03/running-list-of-sponsored-conversations/

[Paul Chaney]

Since this issue is not going away, as badly as I wish it would, I'm going out on a limb and suggesting there should be some form of regulation or governance applied, even if its voluntary. For example, as previously mentioned, WOMMA has a code of ethics. Whether that one can or should be applied with ubiquity is something to consider.

Sans some form of standard, things remain subjective and up to the marketplace to determine what is acceptable or not. Even in the comments to this post, there is much back-and-forth opinion. I strongly suggest that an exploratory body be formed that represents and has the endorsement of leading players in the industry, including organizations like Federated Media, Nielsen Online and WOMMA, to name a few. Perhaps it's even a role the fledgling organization I serve as president, IBNMA, should assume.

Regardless, someone is going to have to take a leadership role and bring the players to the table. It's time to stop talking about it in blog posts and tweets and start coming together to render something useful that we can all abide by.

[wst]

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