Izea: Where Is That Line Again?

The recent flap over Chris brogan’s involvement in a Kmart social marketing campaign is bringing the payola word back into vogue. At issue is the core question of blogger ethics: should bloggers be paid to write about some product?

Just so we can have a bit of historical backdrop here, it’s important to remember that IZEA and Pay For Post (the former name of the company) are not the first to develop a pay-for-blogging model. Back in 2004 I was caught in a controversy with Marqui and Marc Canter about an earlier pay-for-post scheme. I have reposted that controversy (see The Neverending Story: Marc’s Heresy I, II, III, IV, and V).

The issues haven’t changed much:

1. Some advertising broker — Marqui or IZEA — believes there is money to be made by directing bloggers to write about various products or services.
2. In principle, they even state that they will not censor, so the bloggers can write whatever they want, potentially in an unbiased way.
3. The participating bloggers assert that they are being totally transparent, and making their connection open and obvious.
4. The bloggers and the advertising broker suggest that this is really no different from ads in the sidebar or the RSS feed, or a product placement in a movie or video game.

So what are the counter arguments?

1. Yes, we are all for bloggers making money, but not by robbing banks or doing unethical things. The question is: Is this unethical?
2. The lack of censorship by the vendor — like Kmart, in the recent Chris Brogan flap — is not a compelling factor, since lesser known bloggers will self-censor. They will say only good things so that they can continue to reap the benefits of sponsorship. This shows that one of the issues is leadership by example: even if leading bloggers can play close to the line, others will get tangled in it, perhaps intentionally.
3. Being transparent does not offset breaking trust with a community. Chico Marx once quipped “Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own eyes?” If someone does something unethical, being open about it does not counter the ethical problem. “Yes, I just cheated on this test,” does not get you a passing grade.
4. There is a real difference between Laser Printer ads showing up in the little rectangle at the upper right hand corner of /Message, and me writing a post about how great HP LaserJet printers are for $500. In practice, because of the way ad networks work, a blogger may have no contact whatsoever with companies buying ads. I for example, have no contact with Office Depot, whose ads are running on my blog right now.

In the final analysis, it is a breach of trust with the community of blog ‘readers’ — the participants in the social circles that are influenced by the blogger. The expectations of years are being overturned when a trusted blogger takes cash to write a post, or to participate in some cash-infused event and write about it.

Some may ask, how is this different from being paid by the company to consult to them, or to take money from a conference to speak, and by mentioning the event, promote it? Or to be paid to write by some company on their blog?

In the first case, consulting to a company provides a value to the company, hopefuly, and the money is not tied to writing on your blog. In the case of a conference speaking arrangement, there is a long history of well-known authors being paid for public speaking, and it is in general not considered unethical to promote such activities, since the topic of the speech is not shilling a product or service of the organizers. And in the final case, being paid by some company to write on their blog — so long as, again, you are not shilling their product or service, is similar to keynoting an Oracle Customer event.

The distinction comes down to shilling. If the author is intentionally promoting a product or service in exchange for money that they otherwise wouldn’t comment on — because of incentives from the sponsor, or by self-censorship in order to retain the financial supports — then that fine line is crossed, and the ethics of the situation go sideways.

Chris Brogan does a fair job of clarifying the specifics of his involvement, but the fact that he needs to do so is caused by the various additive factors: a sponsored post, written by him, on one of his blogs, involving a $500 shopping spree. His argument is that he is experimenting so that he can provide those insights to companies wanting his advice on social media strategy. And I bet, after the fooforaw this has caused, he will suggest to companies that they think long and hard about disentangling the vairous bits so it doesn’t look like payola, even in the weakest light.

His other argument — that he embodies many aspects of a publishing firm: the author, the editorial controls, the sales staff — merits attention.

[from Advertising And Trust by Chris Brogan]

I’m not a journalist. But I am a publisher. I am a reporter. I am a media maker. And here’s the difference: as a publisher, I have all the jobs of the newspaper. I am both the editorial staff and also the business side of the house. In this piece by Barbara Gibson of IABC, Barb Gibson says in her comment to me: “One more note in answer to your points above: while magazines do indeed do advertorials, they’re usually not written and bylined by their star journalists.”

That’s the crux right there of what has people hackles raised, I venture. In larger operations, there’s a bag man to take the advertising money and leave the journalists pure. I’ll get back to that point, because there is a line still, and that line must be respected. That hasn’t changed, and won’t change. But because there are many of us who are the publisher, the writer, the researcher, the customer service department, and the public relations staff, you’re going to have to seek a slightly different way to manifest that distinction.

And that’s a part of the issue: since he is the whole business, he needs to take steps to firewall the appearance of propriety, like having sponsored post written by someone else.

My dear friend Jeremiah Owyang seems to miss that line, in a thoughtful piece that never brings up the ethics involved, but just the positives of getting bloggers paid:

[from Understanding Izea’s Sponsored Blogging Service]

Bottom Line: Sponsored blog posts to proliferate

Getting bloggers paid is good, word of mouth for brands is also good, as the prizes and content spread to the readers of the blog they win too. The only risk is if the editorial becomes trusted, but we should expect bloggers to self-police themselves. Two years ago, I never imagined that I would write a positive post for anything coming out of Pay Per Post, but I think this model is getting refined.

The promotion could have been staged in a way to avoid all these entanglements:

1. Kmart could have run a sweepstakes, and selected five individuals — not bloggers — to get $500 gift cards and shopping sprees.
2. The could have videoed the sprees.
3. They could have created an ad program, or sponsored posts (like Techmeme has) that could have been placed on Chris Brogan’s and others’ blogs. For a fee. And even better, written by others, like marketing folks from Kmart.

But the confusion, and cross messaging of treating the blogger as the authority, providing guidance, and acting at the same time as a surrogate for the average community member leverages a dark sort of magic.

Let me conclude by saying the Marqui program was a failure. There are no winning examples of ‘pay-to-mention’: it’s toxic. It’s plutonium. It’s obvious payola, and aside from small scale efforts, or shady doings (like companies paying leading Diggsters to play up posts mentioning their goods) it just raises too many questions for the average marketing guy.

Here’s a comment from David Churbuck of Lenovo:

[from Shooting fish: Blog Sluts]

I would no sooner pay a blogger to mention a product or service than I would pay a reporter for the same coverage.

The notion of engaging a third party — agency or individual — to produce content about a brand or product is tantamount to deceptive advertising and a mark of stupid desperation on the part of the marketer who approved it.

I have no issue with lending a product to a blogger or reviewer with the mainstream press under the usual terms of our loaner/reviewer program. I would not gift product or services to the writer.

Note the last word: “writer.” Bloggers, like journalists, are “writers” in my mind. I don’t care if their preferred medium is an audio podcast or a video Vlog — if they publish content publically and with an eye of making money from that traffic via advertising or promotion of their services, they are, loosely, to my mind, a “writer.

If bloggers want to be accorded the same respect and gravitas of a professional journalist then they need to abide by the same code of ethics. Journalists don’t accept money to cover stuff. Period. They may do that is some backwards nations, but not in the USA. Bloggers who join any sort of program that compensates them for coverage of any kind — positive or negative — openly disclosed or not — are, in my traditional ethical mindset, crossing the line.

Bloggers in the social media space — consultants and theorists — are probably due some excuse if they check out these services and report on them dispassionately. But as an ongoing revenue stream and practice — it’s grounds for not being considered in any media plan. I understand there are many bloggers who need to make some money from their blog and I don’t dispute their right to monetize their traffic, but payola is crossing the line. Contextual advertising, or an overall sponsorship is one thing. But paid posting is a no go.