Let’s face it, sponsored conversations are here to stay. Paid blog posts, tweets, updates, stories are all being looked upon as serious marketing tool by major brands. It seems like the web is divided in two halves when it comes to sponsored conversation – one group doesn’t see anything wrong with it and the other hates it with a passion. I belong to the first group. I have done paid reviews on different blogs many times and have sent out a few sponsored tweets as well. Not as many as I would like to but I will admit that I have made a few hundred bucks from sponsored tweets. There, I am sure I have fueled enough anger in those who hate sponsored conversation and you are probably going to scroll right to the comment section and bash me without reading any further. Be my guest.
To those who want to read why I think sponsored conversations are ok, I am going to try and bring this online marketing scenario to the real world so it’s easier to picture.
When your friend calls you over for a beer and says “Beer’s on me,” what do you do? If you are like me, you tell your wife “Honey, I am going to run over to Jason and help him out. I think he’s got a virus on his computer. I will be back soon.” And off I go for free beer. Now let’s think for a minute. That free beer your friend bought you is similar to “sponsored conversation.” How? Say your friend buys you a six pack of corona, he is helping promote the corona but corona isn’t paying him. He is buying it cause he likes it and that happens to be his first choice. Now if Corona calls him and tells him “hey, we will pay you to buy our beer for you and your friends,” wouldn’t you jump at the opportunity? I can guarantee you would.
Sponsored conversations are similar in a lot of ways. If I am using a service already and enjoy their customer service and their product, why should I hesitate getting paid and telling everyone how much I love their stuff. I am not saying you should mislead people, but if it’s a conversation that you can back up, then definitely go for it.
Whether it be blog posts, tweets, facebook updates whatever, if it’s your message is not misleading, sponsored conversations are by no means unethical. One more example – Say you were buying Kraft’s single cheese at a grocery store. A representative from Kraft’s comes over to you and says “Hey, we will buy a year worth of Kraft’s cheese, would you be willing to talk about it to your friends and family, or serve them our cheese when you have a gathering?” What would you say? You would say “Yes!” You were already going to purchase that brand of cheese anyways, so what’s wrong with them paying and you having to feed that cheese to your family and friends? You would do it anyway. You see my point?
Anyways, that’s how I look at sponsored conversation. If you can stand behind your message, whether negative or positive, a sponsored conversation shouldn’t be a problem. Mark my words – social media is evolving and sponsored messages will be something you will just have to get used to. You just have to learn to differentiate between spammers and people who stand behind their messages.
Next time when you see a sponsored tweet, updates, posts, etc. make sure you tie it to the real world and not just the virtual world. If you are willing to do it in the real world, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to put up with it in the virtual world. Don’t be so judgmental everytime you see someone making money off of sponsored conversations. It does more good than bad if you do it the right away.
Your turn to share. What do you think of sponsored conversation?
note : Of course I wasn’t paid by Corona or Kraft to mention them on this post. Would I take the money if they asked me to? You bet your ass I would. If I don’t have a problem mentioning them for free, I don’t see any reason I would have a problem getting paid to mention them. I like their product anyways, might as well get paid for it 
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Hi, My name is Ritu. I am a member of SMA (Social Media Anonymous) ;-) & help bloggers and businesses utilize the social web. 
I do stand on the side of the conversation against sponsored conversation.
I think advertising is fine and there are ways for advertising to evolve to be part of social media – but I don’t like the idea of sponsored conversation.
But I did read the whole post.
What struck me: “You just have to learn to differentiate between spammers and people who stand behind their messages.”
How?
What if the beer company that offered to buy my friend the beer was a crappy beer company. What if their beer tasted like crap. But because they were paying my friend – he recommended it to me.
What if it wasn’t Kraft cheese – it was “Crap Cheese.”
Sure you say “But I won’t back that up, because it’s not my message.” But you have a vested interest in serving me crap cheese now – cause they are paying you.
The second you take the money I don’t know if you are serving me “Kraft Cheese” because you were going to buy it anyway – or selling me “crap cheese” that you are plugging to me so you can get paid.
Worse than not knowing if the beer/cheese is really good or bad (in the end I can make up my own mind) I fear I’ve lost the trust between me and a friend.
I can understand where you are coming from – just want to put out the other side.
Best
David
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Hey Dave, thanks for stopping by
I do see where you are coming from. However, I guess that’s where we draw the line both in the virtual world and the real world. How do we find people we know we can trust? How do we know someone’s advice is worth taking? This is why relationships matter. If you and me have known each other for couple years would I sell out and feed you crap cheese? Trust me I wouldn’t. I probably would take money from that company and feed it to my wife’s friends who stops by every night cause my relationship with her isn’t something that would matter to me in the long run. Where as you, in this case who I know for a while, I certainly wouldn’t feed you the crap cheese.
Another thing, this is one of the reason why there is huge “trust issue” on the internet. There is a reason why many people would rather go read twitip and take advice from that blog on Twitter than anywhere else. The reason – cause Darren is a trusted source and people believe and know that even if he has a vested interest in selling something on his site, he wouldn’t just “sell out.”
That’s just my 2 cents though. And I am very thankful to you for pointing it out. There certainly is different sides to it and it certainly is fun being on opposite ends at times cause it gives you much more insight and perspective into a topic when there is disagreement.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Agreed: There are two sides to this conversation and like I said: I can see where you are coming from as well.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too!