Every once in a while I write a post that people react strongly to. This might be one of those posts… But I can’t keep my mouth shut.
I occasionally take on freelance work. I was recently helping some various small business owners place some giveaways, reviews, and guest blog posts.
Now, when I say “small business owner,” I mean a person who has a one-person business. It’s just them, selling their craft. There is no big corporation. No deep pockets. Just a person.
In approaching various bloggers, I must say, I was taken aback by some of the responses.
Many of the bloggers wanted payment to post the giveaways, reviews – and guest posts.
Now, I can see charging for a giveaway, if you are responsible for keeping track of the entries. But I wasn’t asking them to do that.
I think that accepting a free item from a small business and then charging them to review it is a bit excessive….
And then the blogger that wanted me to write the guest post and pay her $100 to post it? Well, you can guess what I thought about that. (it involves a swear word followed by the word ‘that.’)
I’m all for bloggers getting paid what they’re worth. Hell, I teach bloggers how to do that….
But I can clearly see what your page rank is. I can see how many Twitter followers you have. I can use a myriad of tools to see what your stats are… and some of these bloggers are just plain taking advantage of people!
If these bloggers looked at the links of the businesses that I was showing them, they would be able to see that these were very small, crafty businesses. I wasn’t pitching a huge conglomerate to them.
Whatever happened to helping out a fellow business owner?
Like I said – you should certainly make monetize your blog, but there is a line between making money and just being greedy.
What do you think? Have some bloggers gotten out of control?
I can’t say I have run into that much and I wouldn’t even think to ask another blogger to pay me to post a guest post on my blog. To each their own, but I think “guest” post, means that…guest post. Now there are blogs that do reviews with other brands, pay-per-post, sparkle and a few others that get paid to write a post about some product but they are pennies at best. My thought is that some bloggers love writing and it doesn’t matter if the pay is low, but they get to make some pocket change. That’s not the direction I would go in, but again, to-each-their-own.
If I was to run across a blog that asked for $$ to post a guest spot, I would hope they were called: https://dooce.com/ or something that garners thousands of traffic per month to wield enough traffic to warrant a fee. My guess is that the fee is geared towards a particular Brand wanting to advertise, but then the description might be out of place if it’s towards bloggers. I would have to really understand why they are charging a fee, so I would hope I see some type of disclaimer explaining why.
Now, if their blog barely gets 50 hits a month, that’s a bit far-fetched to charge a fee and can’t assure you massive traffic back for your post. The more value you provide, the more I can be convinced why I would pay a fee to list a giveaway, but I would never charge for a guest post.
I routinely help out the small business and often times, I will post a giveaway and give up the review to further enhance the exposure the person might get for future sales. I think the blogosphere has changed a lot from when I first started blogging and hear complaints from small business owners about how “ruthless” it has become. I hope businesses don’t give up as there are still many, many good bloggers out there. Good write up, Crissy!
Wow. I agree with this post. My belief if u do giveaways etc it’s to get your name out there.
I am a “review and giveaway blogger” and hearing about this, really gets me. It’s the bloggers that are doing this type of behavior, that give all Review bloggers a bad name.
I clearly state in my review policy that I will do a review and giveaway in exchange for a physical product to review, I never charge for this combination. Now, if the “brand” or business wants me to do just a giveaway, then I will charge. It takes a lot of time and administration at the back-end of a giveaway, if the blogger is doing their job properly and that’s why I would charge for this. As far as a guest post is concerned, that’s a guest post – free content for your blog, why would you charge for that?
Chrissy, I would love to work with some of your one person small businesses – I don’t have huge numbers, but I work hard to get the word out about the products/businesses/brands I work with. I do the reviews for love, not money – I make my money in other ways, through paid ads, and sponsored posts, etc.