Are you working for brands for peanuts? Those are $1 bills, yet many food bloggers take them.
I meet lots of food bloggers at conferences who are writing sponsored posts. Here are two stories of their first experiences that didn’t turn out well:
1. Prioritizing the brand over readers.
In the Q&A after my talk, a food blogger wanted to know why readers suddenly unsubscribed from her blog after she wrote sponsored posts.
She said she usually buys a years’ supply at a time from a particular nut company. Eventually she pitched the company, saying how much she loves their products, and could they pay her to write a few posts? They said yes, paid her in nuts, and readers started unsubscribing. Why, she wondered?
I asked how many posts she wrote and over what period of time they appeared. She said she wrote five posts, one after another.
The audience audibly groaned and slumped in their seats. I may have seen a few bloggers slap their foreheads.
Yet she had no idea that five sequential love fests about one product would annoy her readers.
So think about your readers, not just the brand. After all, the brand is hiring you, at least partly, because of your readership and reach. Readers come first, not the client. You don’t want to annoy them.
2. Writing sponsored posts for peanuts.
(Ha! This could apply to the previous blogger too.)
At another conference, I met a food blogger who took home a plastic kitchen product from a blogging conference and loved it. She called the company to say she wanted to write about it. They sent her three products and requested three posts. She agreed.
I asked the price of the products. She said about $45 retail (less if you consider what it cost the company). That comes to three posts for payment in kind of $15 each. She said it takes about four hours for each posts, so that’s less than $4 per hour.
If you must write about products for pay or payment in kind, value yourself. It’s not just about being thrilled by the opportunity. Companies won’t value your time and effort unless you do. And you can help bring up payments for all other food bloggers by charging a reasonable amount.
The subject of sponsored posts is nowhere near as cut and dried as people make it out to be. And I’m still an old-fashioned journalist who doesn’t like the idea at all. Still, if you’re going to do it, there are best practices like the ones I’ve mentioned above: put the reader first; and don’t work for peanuts.
Please yell at me in the comments below.
(Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
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Here are a few of my other posts on ethics. You might like, for example:
- Blogger Blackmail Surfaces as a Trend
- It’s Official: Readers Don’t Like Sponsored Posts
- New FTC Rules on Writing Reviews, Affiliations, and Sponsored Posts
And in other news, The New York Times included the cookbook I co-wrote with chef Craig Priebe, The United States of Pizza in its online holiday roundup of best 2015 cookbooks, and so did the Chicago Tribune and NPR. Best Christmas present ever!
No yelling needed. This is just good old-fashioned advice. I think these are important things to keep in mind, especially the often elusive monetary value of our time.
Hah, thank you Carrie. It drives me crazy that food bloggers are willing to give up so much for so little in exchange.
Me too Dianne. The online gushing about stuff drives me mad especially over things that people have been sent by brands that are unsolicited. Yes it’s nice to be sent free stuff – but is it worth alienating your carefully won readers? My Snapchat feed is full of people opening parcels from PRs. Did you ever read an article called ‘How to build your Snapchat following by filming your self opening free stuff’? Neither did I!
Hi Sally, that’s funny! No I didn’t read that article. I have railed about gushing many times. I wonder if anyone is listening.
The perils of sponsored content is something that many newer bloggers fail to wrap their heads around, often at the risk of their readership. The excitement of getting something for ‘free’ overrides their perspective. If they sat down and did the math they’d see their mistake.
I think many of them don’t realise that what they do impacts on the rest of the blogging community – and this doesn’t just apply to literally selling themselves short.
Definitely Amanda. We have to have compassion because they’re excited to try something new that they’ve never done before, but it’s not just about getting something for free or being excited that a brand contacted you.
How is any of this controversial? I would have thought it was common sense.
Thanks for getting the word out, clearly not everyone has thought this through enough. This hurts us all.
Well, that’s a relief, Clara. I do agree that it hurts us all, as companies get the expectation that many more bloggers might be willing to do work this way.
None of this is controversial at all…just common sense and a good reminder for new bloggers. I can’t see anybody disagreeing with you over either of these smart tips. You’ll have to try harder if you really want to get a good fight going! 😉
Hah! I will work on that Alejandra, thank you.
Great topics, as always. It’s hard to decide how and when to do sponsored posts, as you’ve written about in the past. I’ve always found Shauna’s approach very clear cut and well explained: https://glutenfreegirl.com/about-our-sponsors/?v=cd32106bcb6d
I agree. Clearly marked as for sponsors, who buy a spot. I like that she gives the a smaller audience on weekends, and that she accepts only what she would truly recommend.
These two people are idiots. Not you, Diane. These bloggers. Glad this should help the idiots. And I support sponsored posts done right and paid appropriately (for me, $1200) and I do not have crazy numbers, but I’m a credentialed expert.
They are not idiots, just naive. Good for you for getting paid what you’re worth, Michelle.
I’m thinking more or less that I should be doing something that makes my reader’s life easier. Something that adds value. When I make a sponsored post, it’s with that in mind.
Otherwise, I may as well have one of those landing pages that go on forever, with the yellow highlighting, and the “calls to action…” “Act Now, there’s not much time! ”
Even saying makes me cringe. It’s not what I signed up for.
This article is great advice!
Yeah but you could do all that without a sponsored post too, especially if it’s not so much money that it affects your reputation. I’m pleased you will never say, “act now, time is running out.” Although I did say that on a prior post, basically. Perhaps that’s why there’s only one comment, and it’s from the person I’m promoting. http://diannej.com/2015/what-will-top-food-bloggers-focus-on-next-year/
I suppose I’d cringe if I didn’t believe readers could benefit.
I think your advice makes all the sense in the world. Personally I don’t do sponsored posts. I like to write often about small family businesses that try to keep traditions alive and that persevere from generation to generation. I just came back from Venice where I met one such family. I always make it clear that I don’t want anything, I enjoy having the freedom to write what I want, when I want to.
How lovely! It’s nice to write about business with no ulterior motive other than to tell your readers about a product/service/etc. you respect.
This is very helpful advice. Your breakdown of the second blogger’s agreement, with her compensation coming out to less than $4/hour is a sobering reminder of the need to know exactly what one’s time is worth. In blogging forums that I follow I frequently see folks looking for advice on how much they should ask for when given the opportunity to do sponsored posts for the first time. There is so much excitement at the prospect of starting to earn money for blogging, and trepidation at possibly asking for too much and losing the chance.
Right. Which lowers the bar for all food bloggers, this idea that they should start very low and work their butts off. Sponsored posts are already a very good deal for marketers, so much cheaper and more effective than advertising. There’s no reason to work for peanuts.