Paid Reviews on Blogs
Want a guaranteed review of your product or service? Why not pay for it? My September 2007 "Net Sales" column for Entrepreneur magazine explores this opportunity. If you've used one of these services (or others), can you share a tip or two? Did it work for you?
September 2007
Pay the Piper?
Paying bloggers to review your product could lead to fame--or shame.
A good review is gold. Unfortunately, getting a journalist to write about your product or service is not guaranteed. Wish it could be? Well, you can pay for reviews--not by journalists, but by bloggers. Proceed with caution, though: This emerging tactic has some tricky implications.
The first step is to find bloggers who write reviews. You can contact the top bloggers in your industry who do this and offer them cash. You can also use sites like Blogsvertise, PayPerPost.com, ReviewMe and SponsoredReviews.com. These sites specialize in connecting advertisers with bloggers who are paid to write reviews and link to your site.
Here's how they work: After creating an account, you write a request describing what you want reviewed. You can usually specify the bloggers' qualifications, such as a minimum Google PageRank, Alexa score and/or Technorati ranking.
Today's pay range is anywhere from $5 to $1,000 per review. The paid review sites also charge a service fee, typically a percentage or dollar amount per post.
Does paying for a review undermine its credibility? Some bloggers have blasted other bloggers for accepting money to write reviews. Some bloggers have blasted the advertisers. These bloggers believe paid reviews are automatically slanted in the advertiser's favor. To minimize potential backfire, follow these guidelines:
* Choose blogs that are relevant to your product or service.
* Choose a paid review site that requires disclosure from bloggers.
* Don't choose bloggers or paid review sites that provide only positive feedback.
* Set a reasonable review fee; too little could get you a generic-sounding review, whereas too much could get you one that is overly promotional.
This emerging tactic blurs the line between editorial and advertising. To play it safe, be sure you're paying to get the review but not to control the content. Even with a risk factor, the potential pay-offs are powerful: feedback, buzz, traffic, link love--and most important, the opinion of an influential audience.
© Entrepreneur
September 2007
Pay the Piper?
Paying bloggers to review your product could lead to fame--or shame.
A good review is gold. Unfortunately, getting a journalist to write about your product or service is not guaranteed. Wish it could be? Well, you can pay for reviews--not by journalists, but by bloggers. Proceed with caution, though: This emerging tactic has some tricky implications.
The first step is to find bloggers who write reviews. You can contact the top bloggers in your industry who do this and offer them cash. You can also use sites like Blogsvertise, PayPerPost.com, ReviewMe and SponsoredReviews.com. These sites specialize in connecting advertisers with bloggers who are paid to write reviews and link to your site.
Here's how they work: After creating an account, you write a request describing what you want reviewed. You can usually specify the bloggers' qualifications, such as a minimum Google PageRank, Alexa score and/or Technorati ranking.
Today's pay range is anywhere from $5 to $1,000 per review. The paid review sites also charge a service fee, typically a percentage or dollar amount per post.
Does paying for a review undermine its credibility? Some bloggers have blasted other bloggers for accepting money to write reviews. Some bloggers have blasted the advertisers. These bloggers believe paid reviews are automatically slanted in the advertiser's favor. To minimize potential backfire, follow these guidelines:
* Choose blogs that are relevant to your product or service.
* Choose a paid review site that requires disclosure from bloggers.
* Don't choose bloggers or paid review sites that provide only positive feedback.
* Set a reasonable review fee; too little could get you a generic-sounding review, whereas too much could get you one that is overly promotional.
This emerging tactic blurs the line between editorial and advertising. To play it safe, be sure you're paying to get the review but not to control the content. Even with a risk factor, the potential pay-offs are powerful: feedback, buzz, traffic, link love--and most important, the opinion of an influential audience.
© Entrepreneur
posted by Cat Seda at
3:08 PM
1 Comments:
The real estate market has caught onto the world of blogging and I intend to implement it into my own consulting business. I was surprised to read your blog post, but after thinking about it and what I have learned from your book, How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders it makes perfect sense. I think I will try this out and will be back again to post some feedback! Thanks for sharing!
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Anonymous, at 1:53 PM
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