The luxurious lifestyle of a blogger comes with its perks. None greater than seeing a gigantic upward spike on your readers statistics. But outside of that, they’re few and far between. Luckily (or un-luckily, depending on which side of the fence you’re on) marketers and public relations firms have been contactingbloggers and pitching them new products for review. A question of ethics comes into play; as they often do in journalism. Wether or not a bloggerdiscloses that the product, place or service they’re reviewing, gave them added incentives to do so. If nothing is disclosed and an exchange did occur, then that’s what the blogosphere refers to as “Blogola”.
What exactly is Blogola?
Blogola (Blaw-go-law)
def. A slang term used in online marketing circles to describe the act of bribing or paying influential bloggers to create a buzz in the blogosphere about a specific product or technology in their blog.
As of December 2009, bloggers must disclose any relationship they have with the product they are reviewing. If one doesn’t, they could receive a huge fine.The Federal Trade Commission states that Truth-in-advertising principles must apply to non-professional writers also.
While the FTC means business and not to be taken lightly; the hard-earned SEO of bloggers is being affected the most by Google’s own policy changes.Now penalizing paid blog entries by demoting them in its search results. Ouch!
Living in an era when consumers increasingly turn to blogs and other amateur Web sites for information about the goods and services they buy. Marketingbudgets remain tight and advertisers are looking for cheaper ways to get their messages in front of shoppers.
We don’t wanna come off as a green-eyed monster and sound like we’re against any of this. WeShareMedia enjoys hearing success stories of fellowsocial media wranglers. Transparency and full disclosure are what’s sought after within the writing. After that we say the entrepreneurial spirit should be free to roam. Such is the case for fellow LA Blogger Shea Marie, who recently teamed up with Ryan Seacrest and FORD to form a “Green Dream Team“. This team includes Giuliana Rancic, Maria Menounos, Kristen Aldridge and Marie. These blogstars are now traveling around Los Angeles in Ford’s Green Fleet of vehicles (Focus (BEV) Electric, Fusion Hybrid, C-max Hybrid & C-max Energi) documenting their fun and games on Instagram under the hashtag #GreenGoesGlam.
This is amazing to see and brought a smile to all of our faces here atWeShareMedia. We will never fear success and take joy in the happiness of others.
We’ll be expecting phone calls and emails for further product endorsement any minute now
