But. And there is a but - and it comes in the form of people taking advantage of bloggers, and exploiting us, and not treating us with the respect we deserve. Something I see fairly often are 'blog to win' competitions. Here's how it goes: Brand will contact X number of bloggers, telling them all about a new campaign, wording it so it sounds exciting & fun & something you'd love to be part of. Brand will ask all of these bloggers to write a blog post about whatever, including links back to the brand's site, generally advertising the brand on their blog. And if the bloggers do this, one blogger, the one with the 'best post', will be chosen to win the thing that all of the posts were advertising.
Are you still with me? It's complicated and it's stupid but I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying. Multi-million pound brands and companies are asking a bunch of bloggers to advertise them FOR FREE, under the guise of a competition, with ONE blogger getting rewarded at the end of it. It's like asking a bunch of producers to each make a TV advert, showing them all on TV but only paying one crew. And I'm not saying all bloggers always want cash for doing posts, not at all - rewards in the form of products are nice, too, you know, as a thank you for the hard work that goes into writing, uploading, editing, photographing, scheduling and promoting content on a daily or weekly basis. Just something to show that you're not simply using bloggers for free advertisement in the form of posts and links on their blogs.
Annoying also is that it pits bloggers against each other - who's going to have the best post, who are they going to choose, who's going to win?! When in reality, our talents and strengths are all so different and that's what sets us apart from each other. That's what makes the blogging community what it is.
The whole thing is unfair and embarrassing - when everyone knows you're a huge successful company with millions of pounds, with celebrity adverts on TV, it's bizarre to know that you'd exploit bloggers. People who've not long started out, who don't have as much experience dealing with brands and PR companies, might easily get sucked in; of course, I'm not saying everyone's naive and if somebody wants to do this, then that's their choice and their prerogative but some people genuinely don't know any better. And when bloggers do do this, it makes us all look like we're willing to work for nothing. And I know I'm not.
What are your thoughts on 'blog to win' situations?!
Great post Katy. I agree with everything you have said xx
ReplyDeleteGreat post Katy! you hit the nail on the head when you questioned, are we not to be taken seriously? I really do hope so! X
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