It’s been a whirlwind month or two here at Doe-Anderson’s EnthusioNation.
David and I have both been traveling quite a bit. First, to BlogWorldExpo to sharpen my saw as a social media strategist, and then to SEMA on behalf of our client, Optima Batteries, to put those skills into action on a very cool social media program.
So I’m just now getting to catch my breath a little, and peruse ye olde Google Reader to see what I’ve been missing in the social media fishbowl for the last month.
As it turned out, this was an excellent day for me to pop my head back into the conversation.
Monday, PR guy and fellow highly-caffeinated person Jeremy Pepper posted a few thoughts on using bloggers as a means, not an end unto themselves. I’d encourage you to bop on over there and read it if you haven’t already, but the part that was swirling around in my head in particular was the part about “blogger junkets,” the “pay me mentality” and what might be, for lack of a better and less touchy-feely term, a sustainable model for brands and bloggers to work together.
Right now, we have a few different models, none of which seem to really work all that well for either side.
We have the “shell out for some banner ads on my site because my audience is your target, and I will talk up your brand because I love my sponsors” model.
We have the “send me freebies, and I will love you and say nice things about you because I love free stuff” model.
Let’s be honest. Both of these models are the modern day equivalent of Lucille Ball giving you a :30 commercial, in character, in the middle of I Love Lucy. Only in 2009, no one is naive enough to think that Lucy is motivated to say those nice things by anything other than a paycheck. Wasn’t the point of WOMMA that people don’t trust old school advertising anymore?
But public relations-ish approaches aren’t much more evolved than advertising-ish approaches.
We have the “bad blogger outreach” model, where PR people treat bloggers as just another media outlet to spam with press releases and other potential “content sources.”
We have the “better blogger outreach” model. I think Jeremy’s blogger junket falls somewhere in the neighborhood of this model–where at least bloggers are receiving the same respect and “journalistic cred” as traditional media members. It’s not entirely awful, but it’s also not really scratching the itch fully for either party.
All of this is made even more convoluted by the fact that bloggers themselves have trouble coming to agreement about what’s ethical, fair and reasonable.
And don’t even get me started about the FTC…
There’s another model, though, that I think bears more thought: treating bloggers as creative talent. Hiring them to provide high-quality content, and using their social promotion talent, on a brand-owned website.
To a certain extent, this is what Crayon and Panasonic have done with their recent “LIHD Insiders” initiative. It makes sense from both sides.
What do you think? Where is the best value for both sides? Paying for eyeballs, or paying for talent? Other thoughts?
I’d love to hear from you.
img Accordion courtesy SXC
