Last week, Nathan Burgess wrote about a very top-of-mind issue for PR professionals – blogger compensation. If you haven’t read that post yet, head over there first before diving into this one.
As Nathan notes in his article, it’s not uncommon now for bloggers to receive monetary compensation to review a product or service…in addition to getting to test out that product or service for an extended period of time.
But won’t compensation in the form of cold hard cash sway the blogger’s opinion of said product or service? And won’t that immediately move this review into the paid media versus earned media category? Can bloggers actually be unbiased when a company pays them to write about their product or service?
I reached out to a few bloggers I’ve connected with over the years to get their thoughts on the compensation topic, as well as working with PR pros to coordinate reviews. Here’s what they had to say: Continue reading →
All opinions expressed herein, unless otherwise noted are my own. They do not represent the opinion of other PRBC bloggers, affiliates, etc. – NB
Payments to bloggers are one of the many “Blogger” issues that has been coming for some time and last week came to a head around “Mommy Bloggers” at the evo ‘11 conference when conference sponsor, Aveda, through their Director of Global Communications, Evan Miller, clarified their position on engaging with bloggers. Since I wasn’t at evo and didn’t want to misphrase or mischaracterize anything coming from Aveda, Mr. Miller clarified by email. In short:
Since Aveda began working with bloggers in a PR capacity it has abstained from compensating them with cash payments. Aveda has offered bloggers compensation in the form of Aveda.com gift cards, product and salon/spa services. Aveda’s Digital Marketing team has conducted, on occasion, more extensive campaigns with bloggers in which it has compensated via monetary payment.
Just to be completely clear, again – this was merely a restatement or clarification of Aveda’s position – not a new position, and not a change from old policy. Continue reading →
…..a chance to start the day off right.