Several months ago, a blogger friend of mine did a post about Pay to Play blog giveaways. Look all around the web and you’ll find lots of bloggers expressing their opinions about whether or not bloggers should work for free. Almost anything Cecily writes about blogging is a good read, but when it comes to working for free, I tend to agree with this essay from Kludgymom, about it not being a black & white issue. There are of course two separate issues here–working for free and paying to actually do work. I never dreamed I would encounter a scenario, the size and scope of what I’ve just experienced, that involved both.
Bloggers, is this you?
Now, first of all, I’m not going to be a hypocrite–I do participate in pay-to-play giveaways. Mostly it’s me & 9 other bloggers and we all chip in $5-$10 for a decent prize and do the giveaway. I’m doing the Leap Pad one right now. You, my readers, seem to enjoy them and it is a way for me to boost my email list or some other follow method. Recently a friend sent me a link to enter some free giveaways, so I joined the Facebook group associated with it, signed up for one of the giveaways and sat back to evaluate.
First, even from the get-go, I was not at all comfortable with the number of bloggers involved–literally hundreds. I try to keep all my giveaways to less than 10 entry options, because as a reader myself, I don’t want to have to like hundreds of Facebook pages for a chance at a prize. But, I was being given the html, so all I had to do was copy & paste that into a blog post, set the blog post on Post Planner to publicize ten times and that was it. Would take me 15-20 minutes of my time, and in exchange I would gain Facebook followers which hopefully would convert to page views. I assumed that the giveaway organizer was being paid by the sponsor to do this, as she mentioned several times that “the sponsor was closely watching” our promotional efforts. I certainly didn’t begrudge her this, as organizing a giveaway of this magnitude (hundreds of bloggers, remember) can only be described as a giant pain in the ass. Most bloggers I know host giveaways and are compensated in the $50-$150 range, but I know several that won’t touch one for under $250. I figured that this organizer was earning $500-$1000 (for each event, separately) or more for these, since they were so large. And I think most bloggers would agree that is fair compensation for organizing events this large.
So, fast forward a few days, and in this Facebook group that this organizer has established, she posted a message. “We have the big XXXXX giveaway coming up in a few days. There are over 500 bloggers in this group and only 200 have signed up. If people don’t sign up, they will be deleted from the group.” Not her exact words, but that was the message.
Um, ok. Nowhere, when I joined this group did it say participation in all giveaways was going to be mandatory. My first giveaway with this group was just starting and I hadn’t evaluated whether or not this was going to be worth it for me. Nevertheless, I reluctantly signed up.
Now, tonight, things changed. Because she asked us to contribute $2 to participate in these giveaways. Mind you, the money would be going to St. Jude’s, was her claim.
Ok, I couldn’t keep my opinion to myself. So I said it. And I’ll say it again here–If these giveaways have gigantic sponsors (and they do, these are big, completely legitimate businesses) and we are promoting THEM, then why am I paying? Even though the money is going to a good cause, if you want to do a charitable contribution with each giveaway, do that on the backs of the businesses, not the bloggers.
Let the shitstorm begin. I instantly became Public Enemy #1 on that group for not wanting to give $2 to St. Jude’s. All the pious insults started coming, complete with a “Heaven forbid anything ever happen to YOUR child!” Really? Try walking a day in my shoes. (Tip: you may want to check your facts next time, before you climb up on to that pedestal. You never know who you might be talking to.)
And what was a shocking disclosure….the organizer disclosed she is not being paid for organizing these giveaways.
I promptly left the group, as obviously it is not something for me. And here is what those bloggers are just not getting–the magnitude of what they are doing. First, we all know that selling backlinks is against Google’s policy, and we also all know that it’s done all day, every day, all over the world. In my best guess, for these smaller blogs, a fair market price for a back link is about $25. The first (and only) giveaway I did with them contained five links–the blog organizer got two, the sponsor got two and another blog got one. Ok, digest that for a minute–the organizer has made it clear that she expects all 500 blogs to participate, and we don’t know how many are in this one, because the “like these pages” feature has masked the number of pages you’re liking. But a site/business stands to gain 1000 backlinks, which has a street value of roughly $25,000. Of course any blogger can no-follow the links when posting, but how many of them are?
Wait, it gets better. The sponsor makes you sign up for their site, it’s the mandatory entry for the giveaway. When I last checked, the contest had over 150k entries (you’d have to divide that by the entry options) which means the sponsor gained thousands of new users for their site. I don’t even know what the value of that is for them. But I think any business person would agree–1000 backlinks, thousands of new customers, publicity on hundreds of blogs, being promoted in Facebook updates and tweeted….pretty sweet deal for coughing up three $200 gift cards, huh? Hell, I may even try to gather up ten blogger friends, we’ll each contribute $60, and have them promote us! Why not, right?!?! If you’re doing it for big companies for free, why not us? I don’t mind paying to play, if the site I’m promoting is my own. However, I do have a problem paying to promote a site that is not mine, when they are not promoting me in return. That’s the difference between these big giveaways and the ones where a few bloggers chip in for a prize–we’re paying to promote ourselves. Just because they gave a gigantic prize doesn’t make it ok–when the balance of work, effort and resources is so uneven. How hard is it to buy some Amazon gift cards?
Frankly, I’m embarrassed that I participated. Until I did this post, I didn’t realize that the entries were masked–my readers have no idea how many pages they just liked, and now they are getting tons of crap in their feed, and I’m sorry. Shame on me for not double checking first. I should have gone with my gut, which was to not do this. To my readers, I am profusely sorry and it won’t happen again. To the other bloggers out there that are still doing this and happily paying to promote a business, good luck to you. But as a much more experienced blogger has told me (and I should have listened sooner) “Why would they pay for the cow when they can get the milk for free?”
ETA: I shared this post with aforementioned giveaway organizer, not intended to be hostile, more of a “hear it from the source” kinda thing. Needless to say, she’s offended, as I can understand when you put so much time and energy into something and someone criticizes it. I get that. Oh, and that because some disagreed with me, this is my “rampage.” Au contraire mon frere…..I’d say it is the group that went on a rampage on me, because I did not like your idea. She also claims that the group was formed solely for the purpose of the big giveaway coming up, hence the callout for bloggers to join, and that the $2 is for FUTURE giveaways (which doesn’t change my opinion on the matter in the least). She stated that her page views and Alexa ranking justify the practice and that is where she gets her value. Talking about easily-manipulated Alexa rankings….that’s another post for a different day, lol. But it also brings up a very good point–with all those backlinks, she certainly has much to gain, but what’s in it for all those other bloggers? Funny, this post has now gone full circle, as that was Cecily’s original point.
Great points. I have partnered with other bloggers, but would not pay to be part of something like that. That’s one heck of a deal for the company.
I assume in the end that blogger is making money off the pageviews with CPM advertising, but should this company decided that they don’t want her anymore, what does she have left?
You Sarah, that’s one of the points I was trying to make…if you’re going to be this short-sighted about page views and followers, at least get paid for it! I have organized similar (yet much, much smaller) events with one of the daily deal sites. We offered up some great prizes, and all the bloggers got paid to do it, plus I got a fee for organizing it. It doesn’t have to be either/or, if you’re going to do one of these, you can and should get paid.
Lisa, I commend you on your honesty and your courage to stand up for something you believe in. Too many people are afraid to speak out when they see something that doesn’t seem right. Whether it relates to blogging, helping those less fortunate, or highlighting special needs, it’s people like you who make a difference in the world! Good for you!
Thank you Heather, unfortunately many others don’t see the negatives in this practice, though I am very thankful I’ve seen the light. I’ve just come to realize that it’s a very shortsighted approach, and that out of all the big blogs that I admire, NONE of them used this technique in order to become successful. So I’m not going to, either!