There are three words you should never utter consecutively if you hope to have bloggers promote your company, products, or services. Those three words are: pay per post. If you're not familiar with the pay-per-post model that's great. In fact, stop reading this post. It's better that you don't know about it so you don't get any ideas that might tempt you down this road.
A pay-per-post promotion model is simply hiring bloggers to write about your company. For example, if my company came out with a new line of fruit scented highlighters and I was a pay-per-post kind of guy, I would want the top highlighter enthusiast blogs to talk about these sweet smelling markers. I would contact these bloggers and pay them to blog a glowing report about the highlighters. It's a simple transaction. I pay, they post. Just like advertising...but therein lies the problem.
Why It's Bad
Pay-per-post is a really bad idea at many levels, but my biggest issue with it is that it completely undermines the trust economy of blogs. Good blogs, and the bloggers themselves, are trusted by their readers. They provide content that has value. That content carries with it a sense of authenticity and credibility because it wasn't paid for.
Pay-per-post, then, is the "sweep the leg Johnny" tactic to getting blog readers to find out about your company. It's a seemingly quick and easy way to drive traffic to your website and it just so happens to violate about everything good about blogs.
Blogs were (and still are) built on knowing that people are sharing their own personal and biased opinions about things. When bloggers start accepting money to blog about products, and then don't disclose this information, they are selling out their own credibility. When bloggers sell out their own credibility, it brings down anyone associated with them. The readers lose trust in the blogger, the blogger loses readers and influence, the advertiser loses the blogger, and the advertiser is viewed negatively for trying to sneak their way into some positive blog coverage.
More specifically, here are three things pay-per-post does:
- It promotes laziness within organizations that want bloggers to talk about them. To these lazy companies, it's the perfect promotional model because they get the exposure they want without actually creating content worthy of a genuine conversation. I understand the seduction here but it just cuts against the grain of all that makes blogs work legitimately for you when you do it right.
- It discredits legitimate bloggers who know how to talk about products without hiding their biases. If more bloggers participate in pay-per-post schemes and continue to be found out, it will raise the suspicion of readers of all blogs. I personally don't think we're anywhere close to this yet but it gives us a glimpse of the slippery slope we find if this gains traction.
- It discredits legitimate social media marketers who know how to engage bloggers the right way. Social media marketers and PR professionals who do their homework should have the chance to talk to bloggers and try to raise awareness for the company or cause. The good ones do their homework by being familiar and active with the blogs that influence the same people they hope to reach. They know how to pitch bloggers correctly and when to back off. They know the rules.
The bottom line is that you really can't afford to participate in a pay-per-post business model. You have too much to lose in the form of trust and credibility if you're found out. Instead, work on creating content that bloggers can't help but talk about. Create the best product, service, or event in your field so you couldn't stop the discussion about it if you tried. That's the way blogs and other social media tools will work for you. It takes longer, but it will hold up. It's kind of like building a brick house verses the straw house or stick house. Just ask the pigs. They'll help you out.