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Paid Posts – Do They Damage Your Credibility As A Blogger?
Just now I have read a blog post from Darren Rowse from Problogger.net. Darren Rowse is one of the most respected names out there in the blogsphere.
He had made a poll on how many of his readers have written paid posts.
The result was that 23% of ProBlogger readers have written paid posts. Which shows a massive shift from his poll in 2007?
In 2007 34% of his readers have committed to write paid posts. In this time many bloggers have experiment with paid posts as one potential income stream.
I think this also depends of the nature of the post which is required from the paying sponsor.
If you have the opportunity to test drive the product or service you have to write a paid review about it and you come to your honest opinion that this product or service can be valuable than I don’t see any issue to write a positive paid post about it.
It depends from you and your responsibility as a blogger on how you treat the ‘paid post’ income stream!
A. If you want to write your honest opinion and gain credibility or
B. If you only write what’s required and favoured by the paying sponsor.
I think with the first one (A.) you can build your credibility!
B. will damage not only the credibility of you as a blogger. More it will damage the credibility of all bloggers out there and could make blogging worthless in the long therm.
The consumer would not trust you and the blogosphere anymore!
Here is the full article of Darren Rowse in ProBlooger.net
Furthermore the FTC prepares to crack down on bloggers compensated for posts and plans to monitor blogs for claims, payments, etc. Read the full article here.
CONCLUSION: In the near future this makes specialized Blog Ad Networks more important for bloggers and advertisers where sponsored posts like videos, text ads and articles are labeled as a sponsored ads by defoult to avoid any confusion on consumers side.
Stay tuned and subscribe to my blog via RSS to get more great posts like this one.
Your comments and ideas are welcome!
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