I've gotten quite of few requests myself from myriad of products, many of which I've never heard of. Usually in exchange for writing a glowing review or providing a link I will get said product "free." I have yet to endorse anything for money. My feeling is if I like your stuff I'd probably let the world know for free when/if I wanted to. If you're a reader of this blog you know that sword has two edges -- if I don't like your book, your software, your restaurant, your whatever, I'm gonna let the world know that too. I wonder what happens if the blogger does give a negative review to one of the products or services they are asked to review. Do they still get paid or get the free product? Have you ever read a negative post from someone who was paid to review? I don't think I have.
On my last blog I had some ads. I signed up for the Adsense. The only thing that did was clutter my blog. I never made one penny from it. Supposedly there was a tiny balance but I never received a check. Frankly, I wouldn't do it again. Obviously I don't have enough readers who are stupid enough to click on the ads to warrant them taking the space up on my blog. On this blog I have one "ad" under the "sponsored by" heading which is for my own auto repair business and which I don't even get paid for it. Hmmmm, maybe I should charge myself a monthly fee! Actually I probably wouldn't turn away any advertiser that wanted to pay me to go under the "sponsored by" banner. So is that hypocritical? I don't think so. Most readers are well aware what "sponsored by" means. It's their choice to click on the link or just ignore it.
For the record, I don't begrudge any blogger making some money off of ads, but I just wish they would be more upfront when their actual posts are designed only for that purpose.
Wow, that would be frustrating, and I agree. I have not experienced that yet (I have seen the disclaimer up front).
ReplyDeleteElena, I agree with you. CSN approached me when I was getting ready to do my lasagna post. I thought it would be a perfect tie-in to give a pasta maker. I did not try to weave it into my post but said up front what it was all about. I think CSN found many of us on the OWOH contest-there were over a thousand bloggers in it. Even though I was upfront about it, I do not think I'll be participating with any of those types of giveaways again. I am still waiting for them to deliver the pasta machine to my winner. If I have another contest, which I will, the giveaway will be one of my works.
ReplyDeleteThanks for drawing attention to this..
Very well put Elena.
ReplyDeleteI have ads on my blog but they don't seem overly intrusive to me and mostly I ignore them. I do make a little money from them but not enough to speak of.
ReplyDeleteI recently signed up for Amazon Associates but that was because I wanted to be able to let my readers link right to the book I was reviewing without the hassle and blogger made that easy. I don't care if I ever make any money from it.
I have had requests to do things in exchange for goods but have ignored those.
I put things about not being paid on my blog because of the FCC laws that went into play last year. I am always scared of the boogey man.