As in most lines of work, some bloggers also have aspirations of fame and fortune! For some the personal fulfillment of blogging and having a platform to share their thoughts and feelings is enough. For others who would like to take it further and perhaps earn a bit of revenue from blogging, there are definitely ways to monetise your blog, something I touched on in my post on Blogging Tips a little while ago.
One of they ways to earn money from blogging is to accept and write sponsored posts for companies. This is a concept that has yet to become popular in South Africa. Internationally however, bloggers have been doing this for quite some time now and some of them making quite a packet from it! I am not talking about link based advertising, which more often than not is not disclosed but actually blogging about a product or service for a company and receiving payment in return.
As with most things in life there are various trains of thought on this subject, some for and some against it. I believe that as long as you are honest about which posts are sponsored and disclose this to your readers, there is no harm in doing it. The most important thing is not to spam your readers with endless posts that are not relevant to your website or readership.
Myscoop recently launched a campaign, in the hopes to bridge the gap between bloggers and businesses, in a such a way that will benefit both sides. In essence this new concept is set to introduce businesses seeking to gain exposure for their products or services, to bloggers, creating a platform where bloggers can get paid for putting unique, relevant and high quality content on their blogs.
The benefit for bloggers is an opportunity to blog about and share great new products and services with their readers. In turn businesses will receive great exposure for their brands, products and services via the online platform of the blogger, as well as across social media platforms.
This can be a win-win situation for all concerned and of mutual benefit to the blogging community, readers and businesses a like.
I agree that this can be a win-win. As long as the content is relevant to readers and is informative/well written, I don’t think people will mind that it’s a sponsored post. Print media do the same, it’s how they generate review, and it hasn’t stopped people buying magazines. I think readers will prefer this form of advertising over banner advertising and pop ups.
Thanks for the comment Sarah – yes I completely agree! As long as it is disclosed and done with integrity 🙂