Don’t Tarnish Your Reputation For a Quick Buck
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Since the hype surrounding Blogrush, Dealdotcom and now Widgetbucks, I have been wondering why some bloggers have been so quick to sing the praises of these untried blogging services. I don’t think that bloggers should risk harming their reputation on these new programs.
I was not sure that I wanted to write about this subject for fear of being accused of being a hypocrite some time in the future. But Ben’s article on the same topic was the impetus for me sticking my neck out.
The reasons that bloggers are quick to promote a new service are two fold. First, bloggers like to write about new things happening in the blogosphere. This is what a lot of us bloggers are interested in and we are fascinated with new ways to generate traffic and make money online. This is a completely appropriate reason to write about these topics. Unfortunately, too ofter the second reason presents a precarious tightrope that bloggers need to be careful when writing about these new services.
The second reason that bloggers write about these topics is that these services typically involve a multi-level marketing scheme whereby bloggers will get extra money for signing up new participants. Bloggers need to avoid pimping these services. Our reputation is too important to risk tarnishing it.
The next time that I think about promoting one of these services I hope that this article makes me think twice. No short-term gain is worth hurting my reputation. However, I will write about these new services as news events, just not ask my readers to sign up through me.
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Rich Gilchrest | October 3rd, 2007 at 11:11 pm #
That’s the plight of being a vocal early adopter. Sometimes you end up telling people about a product that sucks. Unfortunately there’s really no way of knowing whether it sucks until it’s been tested and measured, which means you have to implement it. Yes, there is a strong incentive to promote services with multi-tier payments, but that’s positive for everyone if it does, in fact, turn out to be a good service.
Of the three recent examples, only DealDotCom truly qualifies as a failure for me. But then I only promoted it the day it came out and a few days later when I bought something from it. For higher traffic sites in the “Make money online” genre, it probably makes decent money. Does it really qualify as a failure if there are, in fact, customers buying the products?
I like BlogRush, and am happy both with the utility of the widget and the traffic it brings to my site. If others aren’t happy with it, that’s unfortunate, but it’s hardly an unqualified failure.
WidgetBucks is still too new to judge, but as I wrote on my own blog, it looks like a good option for smaller product blogs that have trouble monetizing otherwise. Chitika won’t approve you unless you get thousands of visitors a day, and most product-related affiliate programs will never pay unless you send them a large number of sales. For a builder of multiple small, diversified niche sites, WidgetBucks actually seems to be a good answer for making money in a way that you may actually receive a payout sometime in the first few months.
Website Design | October 4th, 2007 at 12:27 am #
I think, and very sad I might add, that there are far too many people in the ‘blogging scene’ only concerned with making a quick buck.
I see so many blogs with nothing but ads and the worst content. It shouldn’t be that way. I think services like Blog rush and others totally encourage this, even if it’s not their primary goal.
WhyDoWork | October 4th, 2007 at 4:17 am #
Great post!
I had similar thoughts here:
http://www.whydowork.com/blog/wdw-insider/135/
I think there needs to be heightened responsibility, especially when you operate an influential well published blog.
Caroline Middlebrook | October 4th, 2007 at 8:22 am #
I think it depends how you go about telling people about it. If you aggressively promote something and tell your readers that it’s going to be great then you take on a certain level of responsibility. However I think it’s fine to let people know about new things, but that doesn’t mean in a hyped up manner.
When BlogRush came out I signed up quickly and posted quickly but I had my reservations about it and made those known in my post so I think anybody who signed up under me wouldn’t be upset if it didn’t perform too well.
Also, there’s a big difference between promoting something that is free to join, and something that costs people money. If you are asking people to spend their money then you have to take some responsibility for that.
Links Roundup - October 9th 2007 | Blogging Tips | October 9th, 2007 at 10:03 am #
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