12.21.07
Blogging – on a Road to Less Credibility?
Social media is about many things, one of which being about conversations - conversations are powerful. One of my favourite analogies is about restaurants. If I say that there is this Cape Town restaurant that you simply have to go to, you might consider going, but if 10 other people tell you that same restaurant is a ‘must-do’, you are definitely going to make it happen. That is the power of social media.
Which brings me to an interesting question: If a blogger can lead to increased sales for a product and or company, should he get commission? Will it become a very biased medium (and or how trustworthy or credible would you think someone is) if they get “sponsored”, “paid” or “commission” for talking about a product? (Now this path can lead to a much broader spectrum of affiliate marketing and so on too…)
Joseph Jaffe mentioned Dell in a blog post the other day, and received an email from a reader saying how he should start an affiliate programme or get commission for what he said, as he inspired others to buy Dell from the post…
We have already leant towards that, but citizen journalism in an ideal world should be spontaneous, and not ‘forced” - sponsored spoonfeeding (as what it then becomes) surely makes it less credible?
But I guess that could be said from many of the other mediums too, right? Such as SEO and or PPC as examples. We manipulate websites (or pay for PPC ads) to appear higher in rankings for certain keywords. Does that truly make them more relevant than another?
I guess I am a little biased here though, as SEO is my passion, and the way I insist my SEO campaigns function is to ensure that the content is indeed relevant, but there are many other people that don’t operate that way…
I’d like to hear your feedback, whether you’re in the industry or looking inward from a marketing point of view. Is it all fair-game or are we shooting specifically Blogging in the foot?
I guess there is a variety of ways in which this can be executed properly, even if you’re paid for it…Stormhoek and Matt Cutts are two good examples of this being done positively, but early Dell is a way in which not to do it…