A few months ago I received a pitch from a company. The company asked me to write a post on a Home & Family topic. Sounded acceptable to me. There was a payment involved. Again this was acceptable to me.
I was excited to tackle the post. Wrote a few intro sentences.Did a little research on the company website for specifics. Stopped to read the fine print and WHAM!
No disclosure. What?? That’s right I was required to NOT disclose that I wrote a paid post. Now I don’t know about you, but I was offended by this. I contacted the my resource person. She confirmed that the company required bloggers not disclose that they had been paid. She said it was my decision. I usually have a hard time making a decision. Not this tiime. I replied with a resounding “No!”
Easiest decision I ever made.
| Blog URL: www.musingsfromme.com Review this URL _____________________________________Category: Home & Family
Use these keywords with corresponding target url affordable iron doors –> ___________________________________ wrought iron railings –> ___________________________________ iron entry doors –> _______________________________________ Minimum Words: 300 Review type: Positive, Must not disclose that it is a paid post, Must not mention ________in the post |
Content must be original and positive! Please include one of the KEYWORD phrases (above) as part of the PAGE TITLE. PR 3 or higher please. Thank you! |
Not very smart on their part; couldn’t they get fined by the FTC? Good for you for reading the fine print.
Seriously? You should tell Justice Fergie about this one!
Wow! That’s crazy. I bet you feel good for doing the right thing.
Great lesson for all to learn. Thanks for the info!
Since you didn’t take the money, any chance you’ll let us know who it was?
Thanks everyone for your support. It means so much to me. I blog from home, so often find myself without a sounding board when issues arise. I need to go to my twitter and blogging buddies more often for validation that what I am doing is right.
Jessica — The pitch was from Linkworth.com. I joined the site. I select the pitches I want or qualify for. Have not written for them before or since. Good to know I made the right decision.
Hi Jill
I am a French student who studies online marketing. I am doing some research about ethics in word of mouth marketing, and your experience is exactly dealing with an important issue: disclosing paid posts or not.
Good job for having reacted like you did!
I am very interested in seeing the requirements of this company (it would help me a lot for my research!!); and to all, if you can share the same experiences, it is great to talk about it!
anyway Jill, you have my email if you want to know more and help about my research…