A few months ago, I wrote about working for free, and since then I’ve had a lot more thoughts about it. For me, it seems that there are several areas where this becomes an issue.
Writing
Many, many, many Web sites and blogs do not pay for blog posts, but instead offer back other incentives, such as promotion, links back, and access to review products. I’ve written loads of articles with no compensation, and to be honest, it doesn’t usually work out in my favor. The key thing is knowing when to stop – how long do you continue before you give up? I’m not sure.
In my experience, it’s easier to write for free when I can choose the content and publish on my own schedule. The more restrictions, the harder it is to fit into my busy schedule.
“Ambassadorships”
In my last blog post on this topic, I said that a badge and a hashtag do NOT EQUAL VALUE…
I still very much agree with that.
When you agree to be an ambassador, you really have to think about what you are doing. You are putting your good name out there as an advocate of the product. Lots of bloggers love to collect these badges, but I’d rather keep my name undiluted.
Reviews
I require samples to write a review. In most cases, I write a review but sometimes, I just don’t like the product and won’t review it. Simple as that. Sometimes, I love the product so much I use it in one of my TV segments.
Last week, I got an email asking for my blog stats. While I generally don’t mind sharing, I do think that PR and marketing pros should do their homework before contacting a blogger, as tools like Compete.com and Alexa do give some public stats that can at least give you an idea of traffic.
I responded with my traffic (about 10,000-12,000 unique visitors per month) and got the following response back “Thanks Jodi – We prefer to only do give-aways with folks who over 30K monthly visitors. One possibility is to do a post before the giveaway, and if it is successful in driving traffic, we can then send over some products for further reviews…
How does that sound?”
Wwwwwhat???
Really?
So what do I get out of this exactly?
Sigh.
Photo credit: Jen DeCesari
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
What firm was stupid enough to respond that way? Being on the agency side now, I can tell you that we would NEVER say that to someone and moreover, we don’t judge bloggers simply on their traffic. Content, quality, and tone carry more weight than traffic.
Shame on them.