According to Technorati, 175,000 new blogs are created each day by estimate of the 71 million blogs that they track. Everyone blogs for different reasons, but lately the idea of Bloggers being paid to write a review of a product by its brand has come under the microscope and leaves many wondering the ethics involved in performing such reviews. With blogs becoming a new form of media and in the beginning stages of being looked at as a form of journalism, there is so much gray area involved anyone is bound to wonder what is right and what is wrong when it comes to blogging for dollars.
The controversy stems from the ethics involved in giving a true unbiased review when you are accepting money by the brand that, one would think, does not want to have a bad review written about. Many feel that the review is tainted when a monetary payment is involved and others feel it is just another form of compensation when it comes to writing reviews. As one Bull Dog Reporter reader commented,
“How is this any different than a music reviewer accepting concert tickets, a fashion writer accepting clothes, or a golf writer accepting free greens fees? Influencers get paid, and they always will.”As a Blogger who writes reviews myself, I absolutely will not accept money from a brand to write about their product. I do see them sending a product for free differently, and for some, that may be confusing and contradicting. When I enter into a relationship with a brand or PR firm representing a brand, I tell them upfront that regardless of receiving a product for free, honesty and integrity are what my reviews are built on. While I could say the same if offered money, somehow I would feel that pressure to write a positive review regardless of how I really felt about the product. Personally speaking, I want my readers to be able to go out and buy a product and find that if I said it works, it really does.
There are so many different ways for a Blogger to make money these days, some that are not so different than a typical website that monetizes with paid advertising and Google Adsense, some use affiliate links when writing about a topic or product, some receive products for free to test and write reviews on which, for the most part, they are in no way obligated to write about the product and then there are social networking Bloggers who are paid to write a niche blog, however there is no brand loyalty involved or being told what brand to write about, good or bad. The latter would be sites like 9Rules, b5media, Weblogs Inc., etc. The most recent way to blog and write product reviews that has become controversial are found on sites like ReviewMe.com and SponsoredReviews.com where a brand will pay a specific dollar amount, as low as $5 and up to as much as $1000 for a Blogger to write a review about a specific product.
Realizing that not all Bloggers have moral standards they follow, I do believe that there should be guidelines established as to blog ethics when it comes to using a blog in a manner of journalism. One good tip a fellow Blogger gave me when I wrote about Word of Mouth advertising was to establish a disclosure policy and have it displayed on my blog. This is something I have done for all of my blogs so that my intentions and standards are clear to those who read my reviews. With so many blogs out there, I do think it will be difficult to enforce across the board ethics for Bloggers, but would hope that those who want to be taken seriously would adhere to them.
I want to hear from you. Do you question the ethics involved with paid product reviews? What are some guidelines you feel should be established for Bloggers whose sole intent is to blog for money?
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Comments (2)
The question has always been who is giving you the advice. Some bloggers reviews definitely carry more wight then others. What education, life experience or professional experience do they bring to the table? Do they write well, are the posts comprehensive or just re-posts. How engaged is the blogger in the community, does it show? If a blogger commands a large audience then they deserve some respect and to be paid in my opinion.
Posted by
Steve Hultgren |
March 13, 2007 1:17 PM
Posted on March 13, 2007 13:17
I think a full disclosure policy makes sense - this goes for any blogger affiliation, and not just in terms of reviews. In PR, I think it is important for bloggers to be upfront about any professional relationship they may have with a client or contact - when Erin reviewed me over at Forward - she disclosed that Dove is an Edelman client - even though all she was referencing was our earlier email communications regarding the Dove Campaign when we were both still in college. It's just smart to be upfront.
Looking at it more generally, I agree that I don't want to endorse anything that I don't believe is a good product - and I don't want to write a bunch of reviews about products that aren't relevant to my blog. This was the misstep with Daily Candy and its paid advertising with brands like WalMart - they lost credibility with readers by aligning themselves with a brand that didn't resonate in a positive way.
There is an element of trust involved with blogging that I take very seriously - being clear about who I am, my background, my experience. If a blogger doesn't feel that they can stay impartial when money is involved (or free product) than they should make that clear, and make a personal decision to abstain from writing about things based on pr pitches or incentives.
I would like there to be more of an understanding that if you ask/pay a blogger to write a review, you will get an honest review - good or bad - and have that be the expectation. It might inspire companies to have the forsight to think about how bloggers/audience will review those products and pitch them to the correct bloggers. In addition, it takes the pressure of reputation off the bloggers and onto companies themselves. Finally, in the hopes of maintaining beneficial relationships, I would also hope that bloggers would take their role in this seriously, and not use their platform as a means to unecessarily blast a product - or worse, blast a product but not have any contact information so that the situation can be explored and potentially resolved.
Posted by
crosby |
March 13, 2007 3:51 PM
Posted on March 13, 2007 15:51