For marketers: really shows the true colors of a brand if you have to PAY people to blog about your brand. Hire a PR firm.

I blogged more about it here:
http://thefuturebuzz.com/2008/12/17/paid-blogging-lose-situation/

I tried to stay away from this one, howeverkeeps coming up so thought I would share how I explained to a long time customer today. Let’s put this discussion in familiar terms for both of us…baseball.

Yup. So I look at most bloggers (the one-and-done’ers to the plain uninteresting) as the high school players. Want to be players who may sit the bench but at least they tried out and are on the team, there are millions of them.

Then some are actually good and play college ball. there are a few thousand. these are the bloggers who actually have followers and comments on their stories (and who’s thoughts can actually stir-the-pot if they want to . Everyone knows these players get free meals at the local restaraunt and don’t pay covers, yet is seems to be ok.

Then you have the pros (down to a percent (yes 1%) that actually played high school ball). The definition or a pro here is being paid to play. Once you are paid, you are no longer an amateur. Just because Tiger (yes I know he’s golf) hawks Buicks (at least when they were still making them) doesn’t mean that I don’t like to watch him perform. Same with bloggers, they have a right to “go pro” if they want to however they just have to give up amateur status.

Look at the great products that pro bloggers provide us. Personally, I read PaidContent – Rafat Ali; TechCrunch; HuffPo when it was good, certainly Jeremiah provides great insights. His job is dependent on bringing in revenues (as is mine). People who spend more time with a product or company will have better insights and hopefully be constructive. You only have so much time in a day and you tend to spend time with those things that provide greater personal return.

So to sum it up “don’t hate the player, hate the game”. everyone has to eat and if you can figure out how to feed the family while doing something you love, then good on ya’.

Peace out.

@michelle I agree frequency is certainly a key

@david, as long as there is disclosure then who cares, if you care, then don’t read the post? right?

@Melissa there are bigger fish to fry, the mob mentality does rule

@Thom, I think more get paid and don’t disclose than we all know

@Justin, lets keep testing and measuring and optimizing, thats what we’re doing now though like to think that we already have it all figured out, we’re not even close.

@Mark You’re right, take what you want and disseminate what you will and move on, thats it…

2 things:

First, I think Chris chose “dad-o-matic” because this platform focuses on family and that’s what he did – he went shopping with his kids.

Personally, if he had written a post about shopping at Kmart with his kids on chrisbrogan.com I would not have paid it any attention to it. However, if I was an dedicated reader of “dad-o-matic”, I would have cared because I’m a “dad” too. I would at least found it somewhat interesting regardless if he got paid for it or not.

Don’t get me wrong – disclaimers are a must-have!

Second, I would argue that the concept of “trust” is not black and white and we should not assume otherwise. If you accept this, then the discussion about “trust” being neutralized over the action(s) of sponsored posts is not all that big of an issue given the bigger picture of groundswell.

There are also different degrees of trust and this concept will always be measured in the mind of the Reader. Given this, if the Reader is offended by a “sponsored” post, it maybe reduce”trust” by a degree or two. To lose “trust” completely, would entail a shoe full of sand rather than one big rock in one’s path.

I read Chris’s blog because I find his opinion useful and informative. I do not take everything he says as gospel.

Remember, the “unsubscribe” button is only a click away

As far as advertising is concerned, this whole thing of social media that we are participating in is about testing, measuring and optimization. Chris tested a concept out. He will now measure it see if there is something worth doing again and/or optimizing. I say who cares. He was transparent about it, and he certainly has the platform for it. My question is was it relevant? Probably not and because it wasn’t relevant I spent about 2 seconds in Google reader on the post. I didn’t care, I used my internet mute button and changed the channel to my new friends like Marc Meyer. Let social media capitalism win out. We get to talk about it, have some fun, and if he does an paid advertisement for something relevant to me other then K-Mart (c’mon now), then maybe he’ll make some cash off of me. In the meantime, nothing is proven out, so let’s keep testing, measuring, optimizing, and please keep your conversations relevant.

JK (@justin_king)

The fact is that Brogan has a huge platform. Because of this he has the power to reach a lot of people. When people have such a platform they will have others who want to pay to access their readers. Social media does not change that.

There seems to be a movement of people who want all bloggers and users to be “pure” from business motivations. But there are no social media “rules” yet… it is all too new. Those who follow have the power not to follow if they choose, and that is where the real proof of platform is. Will Brogan still have his reach tomorrow. I think yes. I believe that being up front abotu a $500 gift card does not turn off readers.

Now those who hide such payments for posts will be uncovered and that might cause them problems and see followers flee.

Those who read anything should always be cautious of the motivations of the writer….this is true of blogs, newspapers, books, etc…

If you get down to it I will probably stay away from all the whiners and complainers that are posting about this. I say move on! There are bigger fish to fry.

Ultimately Jeremiah is right – it does lessen the credibility of the blogger over time. Want evidence? Celebrity endorsements still mean something to some people but ultimately are met with skepticism. (http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2008/06/celebrity-endor.html)

In this case the objective of the campaign was reach, and that was achieved. Will KMart see an uptick in sales as a result? It’s going to be impossible to tell because of the economy and benefit that bargainesque stores, (http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/04/news/economy/Nov_retailsales/index.htm?cnn=yes) including KMart, are seeing.

As someone on the WOMMA Member Ethics Advisory Board, the bloggers disclosed that they were paid. I’m not sure what more you can ask of them.