Confessions of a Blog Whore.

Published March 9, 2011 |

I love blogging… really I love writing. I always have. I wanted to be a journalist for a short time, until I realized that it was almost as difficult to get published as it was to get into the movies. That’s when I decided that I’d just write for fun. When I realized that I could publish my own works on my own website, it was fantastic! But few, if anyone, ever saw my websites. That is until I learned to blog and how to get my blog seen online.

Now, my words are seen by what I feel like is a lot of people. Currently I’m getting about 50 unique visitors a day. Which more me is astounding! LOL!. Of course it’s not the same numbers as some of the more “well known” and “celebrity” bloggers, but it’s still a lot to me. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that my words are being read by more than just a handful of my family and friends and it means a lot to me.

One of the ways that I’ve gotten my blog to be seen by people is doing product reviews and giveaways on my blog. Trust me, there’s nothing that brings in traffic like a nice giveaway! Of course, it’s what may have brought people to my blog, but I don’t think anyone would come back if I didn’t have something more to offer them. but the point is to get as many people to my blog as I can, so that they can see what else there is here for them.

This brings us to the whole point of this post, which is compensation for blog posts. There’s a huge controversy about bloggers being paid for posts. I have read many, many, MANY articles on the subject over the last few years. My opinion has changed over the few years I’ve been blogging too, which is part of why it’s taken me so long to write my own article on this subject. Until now, I haven’t really fully formulated exactly how I felt. I’ve also become a little more experienced in the review and PR world of blogging too, so that has made a huge difference in how I feel now as opposed to when I first started.

When I first started blogging, and had a very small (less than 10 visits a day) amount of traffic, I felt like it was a privelage to recieve cool things for free to blog about. I was looking for ways to not only get my blog looked at, but to give it good content. I was also not as busy as I am now with my “real” job, so I had a lot of time on my hands to “play around” with my blog. And because I had very little traffic, trying to find someone willing to give me product to review was very difficult. Never mind trying to find other content to blog about!

That’s when I went about trying to find networks that gave newbie bloggers connections to products and brands. I looked at a lot of the “pay per post” type of sites as well. Few if any of the posts that were relevant to my blog content wanted to pay me to post about their products because I didn’t have the traffic. And I still don’t have the traffic that some of the bigger brands want to pay for content. Which is ok with me because I don’t have the time to do that much work!

But that’s where I was when I read articles about mommy bloggers ruining it for other bloggers because they weren’t asking for money for content and advertising. My opinion was that of course these other, more well known bloggers can charge for blogging. They have readers, they have traffic, they have the numbers to justify charging. However, bloggers like me, with little to no traffic can’t charge because we don’t have the numbers to justify it. If we tried to charge for our blog posts and giveaways, we’d never get anyone to use our blogs for their outreach programs!

It actually upset me that these high and mighty bloggers would tell the rest of us to stop doing things for free because it was causing them harm. That’s fine for them, they’ve already “made it”, but us little guys were still struggling to get into the blogging world. We had to make some sacrifices to get our blogs seen, to get the traffic and THEN we could start charging.

Well, now, my opinion has changed a little. I still think there is something to the “paying your dues” sort of idea behind receiving compensation for blogging in something other than cash. Plus things like product reviews should never be paid for because that automatically creates a bias towards the product. So that keeps the review from being honest and useful. But posts that are purely advertising for a brand or product, those posts should be paid.

Here’s the reason why there is a difference. When you are doing a review, yes you get free product, but because how else are you going to try something that is new. I may do reviews on items that I’ve purchased, but I don’t buy everything under the sun. So for a company to get bloggers to talk about their product, they need to send it out to people. They however can NOT expect that all reviews will be positive. Not everyone is going to like the product, even if they recieve it for free! Believe me, I LOVE free stuff… but just because it’s free, doesn’t make it great. If I don’t like something, I”m going to talk about it and why I don’t like it. Now, I try to be constructive in my criticsm, and try to point out that some of my opinions are just that… MY opinions, and not everyone will feel the same way. But I’m not going to change my opinion of a product just because I got it for free. I will also RAVE about products that I’ve purchased, and spent pretty good money on as well! For instance, my HTC EVO… I spent a good amount of money on that phone, and nearly a year later I still LOVE IT!!! So free or expensive, all reviews will get the same treatment from me and should from any blogger. If you can’t trust a review to be honest, then all the review is, is another advertisement. And really who needs MORE commercials!?!

Giveaways and other content posts are a completely different beast from reviews. I’ve done giveaways of several different types and they are a LOT of work! They are worth the work, at least for the blogger they are. That’s a great way to boost your traffic! But it’s a LOT of work! Even for a small blog like mine it’s a lot. Most of the giveaways I”ve done have been for free for the product providers. I have begun to rethink that position, which is why I haven’t done another giveaway in a while. They take a lot of time to run, even for one that only lasts for a few days or a week! You have to sort through your entries, make sure they are all legit, follow all the rules, advertise them on the right sites/blogs, and then make sure your winner receives the prize in a timely manner. Sounds easier than it is. And if you want to run a LARGE giveaway (like what 5 minutes for Mom does once a year, they are nutz!), then it’s even more work! Don’t look to this site for any of the BIG contests with multiple prizes… I just don’t have the time to devote to something like that! Yikes!

I did the giveaways for free for two reasons though. One, I was getting a LOT Of good traffic that seemed to stick around after the contest was over. However, I didn’t see much of an increase in traffic for the prize providers. I did a few giveaways for a friends business, and they didn’t see much of a boost in sales after the contests were over. Which is really too bad because I got a lot out of it. and Two, because I generally also got a free product to review for the contest as well, which not only gave me the post for the contest, but a second post for the review. so really I was getting a lot more out of it, than I thought I was putting into it…. at least that’s what I thought until I realized how many hours I actually put into running the contest. Then I realized I didn’t get enough.

The same goes for other paid content posts. AT the sites like Izea’s Social Spark or Paid Per Post, you’ll find things to post about and maybe you’ll get paid $5 or $10 depending on your page rank and traffic count. But when you’re not a “popular” or well known site you don’t get many of those paid posts, and the ones you do get offered are so irrelevant to your blog that there’s no way you could work them into a post for your readers without sounding like a commercial…. and a bad one at that!

There was one paid post I was offered for online gambiling site for my book review site. It’s a BOOK review site… BOOKS… now, I can see where “Bookie” and “Book” may seem similar, but COME ON!?! Really?? Obviously I turned that post down… but it’s not the only time I’ve been offered strange paid posts that wouldn’t make any sense to my blog. To the point that I have stopped going to those sites to see if I’d qualify for any good paid jobs. If I can’t qualify or apply quickly enough to get the good “gigs” then why bother?

Then there are the PR people who send pitches to bloggers. I don’t know HOW I got on this one PR companies pitch list, but I have not replied to a single one of their pitches since their first email. They sent me a pitch saying that they thought my readers would be REALLY interested in this great new movie coming out and would I like to partner with them and introduce my readers to the movie with some great graphics, some cool downloads and a neat widget to put on my blog. I looked up the movie and the PR firm, and agreed that my readers would be interested in the movie. However I didn’t see in their email what or how I would be compensated for telling my readers about this great movie. Their response was quick and to the point, and after doing some research not at all uncommon from PR firms to bloggers. They said they didn’t have the budget to compensate the bloggers they would be working with, but the hi-res graphics and cool widget were really great! I then replied asking about at least getting a copy of the movie so I could tell my viewers honestly what I thought about the movie, and their response to that was, that they did not have any advanced copies to send out to bloggers either.

Wow!! Really? You expect me to give you prime real estate on my blog, a full post, a widget taking up space on my sidebar, and I don’t even get to see the movie first?!?! What am I supposed to tell my readers? “Here’s a movie that I’m told by their advertising agency that it’s really good and you all should go see it because I will be whenever it comes out”??? Ummm.. no.. see above where I talk about honest product reviews! That whole email exchange kinda pissed me off. I know I’m not some big shot blogger, and I don’t pretend to be, but I do take pride in what I write.

This blog is all about me, my feelings on everything from family matters and politics, to products… but all of it is still my feelings. If you want me to advertise for you on my blog, then fine, I don’t mind giving up some of my space to talk about something, but I’m not going to do it for free, without SOME sort of first hand knowledge of the product in question! That’s just nuts.

Of course, no matter what business you’re in you’re going to find people who want the world for nothing. Even in my “day job” I get this sort of attitude. In my business our service fees are right in the middle of all the other businesses like ours. I get customers that just love us and think our full price is a STEAL! Then there are other customers who think that we’re cheating them some how even though we’re giving them our best price. It always brings to mind the saying “you can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.”

It really comes down to this… how much is your time worth? How much is your blog and traffic worth? No one is going to come up with the same answer, but I can tell you, your time, your blog, and your traffic, no matter how small, is not worth nothing! It is worth something, or else the PR firms would not have a job just to work with bloggers. There’s a reason they come to bloggers for “outreach” programs. But only YOU can decide how much YOU are worth. Of course it’s the PR firm’s job to negotiate from nothing up… and your job to negotiate from the stars down.