Hired-gun bloggers
In noodling around tonight, I'm reminded that we should not get too teary-eyed and righteous about the "purity" of blogging.
That model probably will always exist in some corners of the Net. But now, as corporations discover the form, it's possible the "blog" you are reading (not this one) is produced by hired guns specifically to "seed" it and drive traffic to it. And of course, that's touched off lengthy thoughts on what paid blogging is worth. (By that writer's reckoning, $10 to $20 a post, with bonuses possible. (Of course this is $CAN, so the actual U.S. value may be lower ...)
Wonder how long it will be before some "guest" blog on a media site is found to be ghostwritten?
Certainly transparency, one of the supposed creds of blogging, is not even at play here.
The standard response is that the "pure" blogging community will smoke out the fakers. Maybe. But I find a bit of delicious irony that mainstream blogging is less than a decade old, and we already might need a seal of approval for a "Genuine Old-Fashioned Blog"?
posted by Doug @ 11:54 PM
4 comments|
4 Comments:
I appreciate the link to BloggingHelp. I think it's important that we open discourse around the area of paid blogging. There will always be those willing to blog as ghostwriters or to write purely for SEO. And, I agree, there will be a ton of companies who jump into blogging as the next marketing driver without stepping back to see what else blogs offer - communication. I agree with Jon that companies will be using blogs for PR, but I don't think of it as the same PR we have offline. I think it is more encompassing, and therefore more positive.
I like to think that as a marketing professional and as a ProBlogger, we can offer more than just a marketing engine, but a chance for communication. We treat the blogs we write on as our own, and the readers as our own. We would even help customers and companies liaise. I would never be a ghostwriter personally, as I don't believe many of my fellow pro bloggers would either. Ghostwriting would do nothing to build my personal profile and goes against my ethics. I would like to think that transparency IS at play. Perhaps considering myself a professional writer with some standards is why I do not agree with the linked-to pricing model.
So, I think, like with journalism as always, blogging will have those who follow some rules and those who do not.
It's this from the blogginghelp site that provoked what I hope was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek post:
Want to start a blog but don’t have the time to get it rolling? Or need some extra bloggers to spike your traffic? Having dedicated, consistent writers developing in-depth and authoritative posts is a great way to achieve readership and business success. Contact us to begin right away.
If blogs, as some definitions contend, are highly personal media, then how does "extra bloggers to spike your traffic" fit that model? Do you include an explainer on all your posts "I've been hired to spike this blog's traffic"? That would be true transparency, wouldn't it? But how could you call that blogging at all -- if you accept the sometimes didactic classic definition?
That illustrates my broader point. Blogging is a publishing system, and those who insist on defining it rigidly are destined to have their hearts broken.
Blogging is fundamentally just another form of publishing. People apply their own set of standards and ethics to how they publish, but none of those define it absolutely. You were right on with your level headed analysis there.
On an unrelatd note, there was no mention of currency in my article. I'll assume your mention of it was part of your tongue-in-cheek approach.
Will:
You are right on the currency. Tongue firmly planted in cheek.
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