There is apparently a hub-bub brewing right now over the fact that advertisers are paying high profile bloggers to post favorable product reviews on their sites. This isn’t particularly new but some of the people being paid are the likes of Chris Brogan who supposedly knows a thing or two about blogging. I don’t know if he knows so much about blogging as he knows about marketing but whatever, that’s another issue all-together. Local PR blogger Lara Kretler posted about this in length here and I agree with much that she had to say so you should probably take a glance at her piece.
Briefly though I want to say that, if you have a blog or a website or some online presence and you either have advertisements on that site or you actively review products (which you are somehow compensated for) then you have moved away from neutrality. As long as that is ok with you then great.
So let’s say that you are in fact ok with bias and that you feel advertising is of some benefit to you in achieving your goal. Perhaps you’re a digital magazine, or newspaper; maybe you’re trying to build a home business as a blogger or consultant or something.
When you consider shilling for someone in this multimedia world think of how that effects your image. All too often the ads are an after-thought. Just because signing up for Adsense is easy doesn’t mean the income you derive from it won’t be more costly to you in loss of readership; or quality participation from those readers. What are you trying to provide to your audience, the audience you’ve probably worked hard to attract? Do you want them to notice you or the products that you are drowning in?
Ads that fit the feel and format - NYTimes Online
Ads that dominate and distract - WCMH NBC 4
My opinion, which I have not been paid for, is that you would be far better off to maintain control over your advertising content if you decide to have some than you are to let your advertising content control you.
