Sponsored Conversations - yes, no, maybe?

I have run across the sponsored conversations concept via Josh Bernoff and via Techdirt's Mike Masnick before (see Techdirt's sponsored conversation example here), and found it very interesting yet a little hard to align with a more 'seriously independent' blogging approach. I am not sure that I would personally want to engage in having my blog or my tweets sponsored by someone that wants to reach my readers or 'followers' (and yes... there have been offers), but I still like the concept and will investigate it further.  It seems like there is a nice package to be made with good old Word of Mouth, web-native Word of Mouse, and Sponsored Conversation - or what do you think?

Comments

[Robin Good]

1.

Ciao Gerd,
I think companies should sponsor venues and opportunities for conversations to happen and then leverage the best that emerges from those to create business, buzz, marketing, premium content and more.

It is in making us do what we really want spontaneously that brands can best achieve their marketing and promotion goals.

What do you think?

[Gerd Leonhard]

2.

I tend to agree - but it's a tricky turf when one wonders if someone can 'buy the conversation' or how exactly ...

[[email protected]]

3.

It comes down to creditability retention. Brands are going to seek any venue available to spread their message and pay any price to do so. But it will be the bloggers responsibility to figure out if they can retain creditability with their audience while being paid to deliver a point of view. Personally, I think sponsored conversations are no different than paid ad units. And any blogger who accepts payment for their point of view should understand they are eroding their authenticity in the process. Gerd, I respect and look forward to your thoughts - as I believe them 2 be independent. I can honestly say that if I knew you were accepting compensation, I would tune mediafuturist out. Maybe bloggers should poll their audience to find out if their audience doesn't mind?

[Gerd Leonhard]

4.

Thanks keith, good to know that. I am not planning on taking compensation for my blog posts and tweets, and that's for sure, btw - just looking at this issue to see what people think. I tend to agree that it does not feel right - for me.

[Crosbie Fitch]

5.

The elephant people are still avoiding is the forehead slappingly obvious idea of the blogger's readers sponsoring the blogger to blog. After all, it's the readers who get the benefit.

Why would the readers be interested in having their eyeballs sold to advertisers instead? That takes value from the blogger (cannibalising audience) and the readers, for a fraction of the gain that would otherwise accrue if the readers sponsored the blogger directly.

[Mike Masnick]

6.

From our perspective, it's important that the conversation topic be an actual conversation topic -- and not "please talk about our product," because that's not interesting at all. In fact, in many cases, we look for interesting topics, and then try to find sponsors for those topics.

So, unlike some of what's considered "sponsored conversations" where it's "talk about my product," ours are very much about actual conversations, just bringing in a sponsor that matches with the topic area.

Also, since we run the conversations on a totally separate platform, and anyone can look at them and see how they work, it's quite clear that they're not designed to influence how the company is being talked about. I don't think anyone thinks our credibility is any different for running such conversations.

I agree that for some players in the space, they straddle (or stray over) a very gray line. But we stay far, far away from that line, and focus on providing interesting discussions around compelling topics.

Take a look, for example, at something like this:

https://www.insightcommunity.com/case.php?iid=1282

Look at the content created by the community, and I'd be hard pressed to see how that raised any credibility questions about anyone.

Also, to be quite clear, nothing we do -- EVER -- is about getting you to tweet or blog for a client. Everything happens on our platform, and some of that content may get republished on a separate site. It's the same thing as freelancing in many ways.

[Gerd Leonhard]

7.

Thanks Mike, I like the way you guys are approaching this! Cheers

[Ted Murphy]

8.

Gerd,
I would be happy to talk to you about the space anytime. Feel free to drop me an email.