Robin Good, on his post about “brand ambassadors” says that credible and authoritative bloggers are where companies should spend their advertising dollars. People don’t believe in big companies anymore; they trust friends and family. Even if someone is affiliated with a company in a “commercial nature,” we still trust their tips and suggestions.
I think what he says is true – my sister works for a certain car insurance company and she keeps me straight about rumors I hear in the media about insurance rates and whatnot and she answers any questions I have about car insurance. I realize most of her info comes from her company, but does that deter me? Not so much, because she knows more than I do about car insurance. She’s authoritative, even if that authority is skewed.
In the same way, bloggers that are getting paid to blog for companies are getting paid to not only blog about that company, but also to become experts in that company’s industry. You can’t blog about one company’s products without comparing them at some point to another company’s products.
Good goes on to say that this advertising model would “provide companies … much higher impact and effectiveness than anything they have so far via traditional advertising.” He also says that “brands would need multiple Brand Ambassadors addressing the many different target audiences making up their potential customer base.” This would lead to communication and marketing joining forces, instead of being separate, as they are now. Independent publishers could also influence messages and promote products that they actually believe in, rather than just accepting any kind of advertising, even for products they don’t believe in or endorse.
This kind of makes sense to me. Publishers of Web sites and magazines and newspapers accept all kinds of advertising, even for products they would never use themselves. And now they could have the ability to only accept, or push more fervently, the brands they do endorse and that they do use.
Now, what about the whole issue of how a blogger that is getting paid maintaining his or her integrity and authority, knowing they are being influenced by their paying company?
According to Good, it’s not all that different than traditional advertising. The way you show your objectivity is to disclose everything about the policy of the blog content and to show people in the content of that blog’s posts that the blog is fair and isn’t skewed.
According to Good’s model, policies would be transparent and that would increase the trust level of the audience to the blogger. That trust would raise the advertiser’s value. And, audiences would be able to take what they read on the blog either with a grain of salt or as gospel, depending on their relationship with the company sponsoring or running the blog. It would still be up to the audience whether they click away from the blog, but at least they wouldn’t have to wonder about the origins of the blog.
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