After my post last week, Why Do Bloggers Continue to Work for Free?, I came across a few more blog posts on the same, or similar, topic. It seems several bloggers were on the same wavelength within days of each other. Because these posts have sparked a lot of conversation amongst my friends and blogging community, I want to share the other posts with you so you can get various perspectives.

• The post about Predatory PR I’ve been waiting to write
• Because some things are worth more than a box of cereal
• What the Next Year Holds for Mom Bloggers + Brands That Court Them
• Money Talk: Should Mom Bloggers Discuss What They Earn?
• When and What Should a Blogger Charge for Their Services?

I have been thoroughly enjoying reading the responses, reactions, and thoughts of everyone who has added to the conversation in one way or another – whether in the comments of these posts, on twitter, or via private conversations. There’s still a lot to think about and figure out. Both brands and bloggers have good points, but hopefully, we are all working together to carve out some solutions.

Just today, I received the results of a recent survey conducted by Izea, Inc. The 2010 State of Social Media Sponsorships provides some very insightful information and statistics related to sponsored content and blogging for money. In fact, it also takes compensated tweets into account. Some interesting points I found in the report:

• 53.2% of social media publishers have accepted compensation for sponsored content
• 71.3% of respondents have been approached with offers for cash, products, or other compensation for social media promotion
• 57.6% have engaged in direct sponsorship
• 35% of those who indicated they were PR, social media, and marketing professionals stated they have no awareness regarding the FTC disclosure guidelines

I find the last bullet point quite shocking. I’m surprised that there is such a high percentage of people in the industry that have no awareness of the FTC guidelines. However, it’s great to see that 57.6% of respondents have already engaged in direct sponsorship.

Let’s continue the conversation. What do you think of the information in this report? How about the other blog posts and perspectives? Do you find some guidance in reading such information or do you have even more questions?

About five months ago, I shared with you how I was offered to work for food…literally. In exchange for seven blog posts for a brand (in one week), I was offered $200 worth of their food products. Promoting a brand for free – on that scale – was not something I could agree to do.

In those five months, I’ve seen many more paid campaigns and sponsored content become available – both to me and blogging friends. We’ve seen more brand ambassador campaigns that value the work required and partner with a blogger over the course of a month or more in a variety of ways, including sponsored posts, advertising, and hosting twitter parties.

Progress. Yet, with all that progress and change towards more respect for bloggers’ work, there are some campaigns out there still being pitched to bloggers that take advantage. Just last week, I received an offer to be part of a community that will be relaunching soon and is geared for moms. Without naming names again, the site is a fairly new community backed by a high-profile TV personality and network. The idea being pitched to me was as follows:

• We want to build a community and educate moms on money matters.
• We’re looking for a group of 15 moms who will be highlighted on the site.
• Requirement from each of the 15 moms: write 3-4 articles per month (250-300 words each) on micro-site and moderate comments on each post
• Benefits for each of the 15 moms:
  • profile with bio
  • 2 sentence by-line on each article
  • site will be promoted on TV show of said personality and on sponsor’s site

As soon as the person pitching me asked, “So, what do you think? Are you interested?” I answered with “So, it’s not a compensated project?” I could not wrap my head around the fact that they wanted me to create content for their site on a weekly basis, with no compensation. What’s more, these 15 moms were really being brought on to build a community that thus far had not succeeded with the TV personality alone. They needed the help of these 15 moms to bring a community to the site. The allure of my bio being on this high-profile TV personality’s site and the promise of the site being promoted on the TV show was somehow supposed to be enough compensation.

What surprised me even more was that I was told they already had the majority of the 15 moms on board and were in the process of finalizing the team, so they need my answer ASAP. Really? There was already a set of 10+ moms out there that had agreed to this? Why?

Ladies, why are you agreeing to work for free? Writing 3-4 articles per month takes time. It may only take you an hour per article, but that’s still time taken away from your already-busy lives. Plus, you are contributing to the success of the overall site, which has sponsors and advertisements – all money that you’re never going to see, but instead is going into the pocket of an already high-profile TV personality. Does that seem fair?

Why is it that they could not budget out a specific amount to pay the 15 moms that will be building the community for them? And if the budget did not allow for fair pay for 15 moms, then perhaps the amount of moms brought onto the team could have been less in order to meet the budget constraints. I know of blogs/communities owned by fellow moms and bloggers that pay their contributors. How is it that a site backed by a TV personality and network could not afford to do so?

On the other hand, perhaps the community owners were ill-advised. Maybe it was never suggested to them that they should pay for such work and were going along with what the social media consultant was proposing. It could very well be that this particular consultant was advising them to gather a group of moms to write free content for them in exchange for the exposure. And why wouldn’t they think it to be fine? After all, there is a group of 15 moms out there that did agree to do just that!

And, so the cycle continues. If bloggers continue to work for free, then consultants, brands, and companies, will continue to think that it’s the way to conduct business.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts. How would you have handled such a pitch had it been offered to you? Why do you think that bloggers continue to accept non-compensated projects and work for free?

Photo by Martin Abegglen

There’s been a lot of buzz recently regarding moms who blog and whether or not we should get paid for hosting giveaways. If you’ve ever hosted a giveaway on your blog before, you know there’s a lot of work involved. And if you don’t know just how much, let me break it down for you. On average, if you want your giveaway to be successful, then for each blog contest hosted, you usually have to:

• Review the items/services.
• Write a blog post, many times including personal images or even video you create.
• Promote the contest via various social media outlets.
• Promote the contest on other blogs and sweepstakes sites.
• Draw a winner.
• Contact the winner.
• Contact the contest sponsor with winner’s information.
• Follow-up with winner and/or sponsor if necessary.

With all the other millions of things that busy moms who blog have going on in their lives (blogging-related or not), that can take a lot of time out of your week.

As many have said, when you’re writing about any product or brand, you’re helping to promote them. It may not be equivalent to the promotion they’d receive on a larger website or on TV, etc., but it’s still promoting them. And, a blog giveaway is promoting them multiple ways. Think about it.

Not only are you writing about them on your blog (which lives forever via search engines), you’re also talking about them on social media. If you tweet about your contest 3 times a day for a week (standard length of a contest), you’re already at over 20 mentions for that one brand. So, for any given blog contest, you’ll probably be promoting that product or brand about 25 times.

Most bloggers do all of that promotion and work for free.

Now, I know that many bloggers do it to increase their page views, or to provide a good promotion to their readers. For many, that’s enough reward. Others feel that receiving the product in exchange for hosting the giveaway, is equivalent to payment. My opinion? In some cases, it might be enough. But, it depends. It depends on your personal situation, what you feel is worth your time, and what you feel is valuable to your readers.

However, if you’re doing all that work in exchange for a $20 product, which you’ll then have to claim on your taxes as income – is it really worth it?

Recently, I was approached about a new blogger program in which this brand was looking to partner with “five influential bloggers” for a giveaway. The program pitch requested that you post on your blog 6 consecutive days, with a total of seven blog posts to be written. This included not only your own giveaway, but also cross-promoting the other bloggers’ giveaways. SEVEN blog posts – one each weekday (two the day of your contest), plus an extra introductory post. That is a lot of blog posts for one particular brand and will dominate your blog.

Of course, I respectfully declined participation in the program and let them know that it was entirely too much to ask of any blogger without it being a compensated or sponsored program. I just could not see myself participating and doing all that work, to then have to claim $200 worth of products on next year’s taxes with no money in my pocket to show for it.

I share all this because I really want PR companies and brands to think about what you’re asking from bloggers before you pitch them. Are you going beyond creating a mutually benefiting relationship with that blogger and taking advantage of the free ad-space?

I also want my fellow bloggers to think about how much work you’re putting into each giveaway and really consider if it’s worth your time. I know I’ve agreed to host contests in the past that in the long-run were not truly beneficial to either my readers or to myself. I’m starting to learn from those mistakes, though. Plus, like I said – whether you host a giveaway and put in all that work for free is your decision and depends on your personal situation. It might be worth it. All I ask though is that you think about it first before responding to the pitch.

P.S. If you happen to know the brand/pitch I’m referring to in this post because you too received the pitch and/or are actually participating in the program, please don’t mention the name in the comments. My purpose is not to slander any given brand, but rather to share my experience so we can all learn from each other.

Extra reading: Show Me the Money by Audrey Binkowski