andrewteman.org

After much internal debate over the morality of paying for some blogger buzz to promote a new product I am part of, I decided to go for it. If you recall, as a blogger my stance on web/product payola was pretty black and white (pay me and I will shill for you!), but the same could not be said of my view of the same arrangement as an advertiser.

I felt that with Quibblo, we had a genuinely good product, that was without a doubt going to get even better, and that in time, people would notice on their own, and natural buzz would be born. I can’t really explain why, but I had a bit of a dirty feeling when it came to paying for artificially generated buzz in hopes that it would spread organically once the paid seeds were planted. That being said, I suppose there isn’t THAT much of a difference in my buying paid search in hopes that it will at some point help out on the organic search side…but either way I just felt slightly icky about the whole thing at first.

Long story short, I decided that if bloggers disclosed that the reviews were paid, and if the reviews were really honest reviews and not sugary false endorsements, that it was worth a try.

I started out with ReviewMe.com and SponsoredReviews.com, two of the bigger players in the space, ReviewMe because it is part of MediaWhiz (who I know well) and SponsoredReviews on a tip from a trusted friend. For some of the reasons mentioned above, I steered clear of PayPerPost…they in particular just rub me the wrong way.

ReviewMe was a snap to setup. Easy peasy web 2.0 interface, pretty standard really. I got in, set the parameters for my campaign, which included number of reviews I wanted done, overall spend, price I was willing to pay per review, and a little description of what I wanted reviewed and how. I also was able to set a link to use in all posts, which to gauge results, I tracked clicks on via some tracking software we use here at Pangea.

Initial thoughts:

• Setup was simple, but it should be
• Unable to pre-screen reviewers and accept or decline bloggers. I would get emails telling me that a new review was posted, and that was it.
• Restrictions to a single category seems to curb volume. For instance, we had to classify our campaign to a particular category (”technology” for example) and only bloggers who were in the “technology” category were able to participate. There was no clear way, as a blogger, to see and participate in campaigns outside of your category. Also, it is not possible to classify your campaign (or blog) in multiple categories.
• Reviews were generally well written. Either we have a good product, people generally like us, or reviewers are just more inclined to give a good review when they are being paid. Probably a little of each.
• Disclosure is required and bloggers abide by disclosure rules. A real cornerstone of this model is to transparency, ReviewMe seems to have this covered.

On a tip from a trusted friend, I also signed up for SponsoredReviews.com and went through very much the same process of setup that I had encountered on ReviewMe - again, all fairly standard. What differentiates SponsoredReviews from ReviewMe, are a bid system and an approval process, both of which I like(d) quite a bit.

Initial thoughts:

• Great volume of responses, nearly too many. 50 responses from interested bloggers in the first 3 hours.
• Tagging of campaigns and of bloggers, allows for a lot more visibility for your campaign and probably helps prevent the volume issue due to the category restrictions in ReviewMe.
• LOVE the ability to reject bloggers, and frankly, I can’t understand how ReviewMe doesn’t do this. Approval of sites BEFORE posts are made is a crucial differentiation.
• Poor quality overall so far. Thank god for approval processes, of the 50 responses, I have only accepted 3. Lots of terribly untargeted blogs ranging from stay at home mom’s to tv review sites, many of which are simply clearinghouses for paid postings and very obviously have little or no genuine content.
• The bid system is nice. I can set a high and a low figure for what I am willing to pay for a post, and then bloggers bid for the ability to post the campaign. I can also search for bloggers and just offer them the chance to blog about our product at their list, or “public” price. I have found (not surprisingly) that many bloggers wildly over value their worth in this market, and if you let them come to you, most will bid on your campaign at 50%-75% below their list price.
• Quality seems ok so far, but too early to tell. Should know more in a few days.
• You don’t have to pay up front, and only pay AFTER a post is done, which is also nice.
• Disclosure seems a little spotty. I checked a lot of the blogger’s sites, and noticed a lot of paid postings that were not marked as such. Big no-no in my eyes.

Lot more to come once this campaign stabilizes a bit, but so far it has been an interesting experience. As an advertiser, a couple of quick parting thoughts on screening potential paid bloggers.

1. Look at how often posts are commented on. Alexa and page rankings can be gamed, and a good paid blogger is going to use these rankings to his/her advantage. If there are no comments on any of the posts over the past 30 days, it’s a bad sign. I rejected a lot of blogs based on rankings that seemed really fishy in relation to reader participation.
2. You are advertising, so relevance is still key. You buy banners on sites that fit your product, you buy keywords relevant to what you are selling, so think the same way when looking for a paid blogger. If you run a paid post for guns and ammo on a stay at home mom blog, your paid post is going to stick out as such. Well targeted paid posts should and will blend nicely into existing and non-paid content.
3. Track results. Get a simple click tracking link and see what traffic comes from your paid postings.
4. Encourage honest reviews and posts. This is something a lot of people may disagree on, but I think is the only way to go. If you need people to lie and say that your product kicks ass when it doesn’t, skip the paid posts and spend some time making a better product. If you ask for paid postings, ask reviewers for an honest and candid review and be prepared to take the bad with the good.

That’s all from me for now. Anyone else have experience playing in this space? Any bloggers or advertisers have thoughts?

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