briansolis: This is Not a Sponsored Post: What You Need to Know About Sponsored Conversations & the FTC
Alice
· 7 months ago
Except that pundits are not held to high standards. Bill Kristal was on the take from Enron, George Will took a $48,000 honoranium from Conrad Black right before writing a favorable review of Black's biography of FDR and Tom Friedman regularly receives speaking fees from groups promoting globalization. And who can begin to untangle CNBC's knot of conflicts of interests.
Norbert Mayer-Wittmann
· 7 months ago
Do you approve of all the commentary you have linked to?
Do you endorse all of the brand names you have cited?
Have you explicitly said so?
Why or why not?
Do you disapprove of any of them?
Would you mention or cite anything you disapprove of, or do none of the opinions you vehemently disapprove deserve to be mentioned?
If not all of the topics you agree with and/or disagree with are mentioned, how acan we be certain than you are perhaps not fully disclosing all of your endorsements, ratings of approval / disapproval, etc.?
Fantastic post Brian. I've followed the words of Jeremiah Owyang and others on this topic very closely over the past few months, and as somewhat of a "communications purist" or "snob" for lack of a better term, I just don't understand how a brand or agency for that matter could be O.K. with labeling sponsored posts as a form of Publicity/PR or Social Media Communications.
The problem is that Social Media Communications and engagement marketing in all of its forms (content syndication, influencer/blogger outreach, social networks, etc.) does not scale on the same level as ads; nor does it provide the same guarantees and "instant results" that effective online ads can and often do (key word being effective ads).
To me this highlights two much larger issues :
The idea of understanding scale v. engagement, and identifying best practices for achieving both (YES, it can happen as a part of the larger social media marketing mix);
and
Social Media: Project-centric short term gain v. Ongoing dialogue with long term results and brand affinity.
Brands and agencies still look at Social Media as a checklist solution (Facebook - check; Twitter - check;), and both entities need to understand that there are more qualitative and quantitative benefits to be garnered when you commit to having skin in the social media game. Look beyond the short-term "project-based" solution and develop a long-term strategy that consists of an ongoing, active presence and dialogue with consumers. This takes time and resources, and is not conducive to the instant gratification culture that we now live in (thanks in large part to technology and social media), and which both brands/agencies covet and unrealistically expect.
As for the bloggers - I've got no beef with their desire to get paid (aren't we all one way or another?) so long as they are transparent with the very fans who've followed them, trusted them, and given them the visibility that has allowed them to reap such financial rewards. And if it takes the FTC to ensure that bloggers are accountable and held to some standards, then so be it.
Marsha Collier
· 7 months ago
Entering as an influencer from a newspaper background, I have held to a level of journalistic integrity.
It's a sad portrait of the times that bloggers and influencers not admit to receiving product (or to inexcusably to pass paid text as legitimate editorial comment).
The responsibility of passing knowledge from one to another is a heavy weight. Being an influencer means accountability: to keep an eye on the bigger picture.
If one plans on being around for a while they should weigh the quick gift of payola versus the long term cost to their credibility.
Maggie
· 7 months ago
Good morning Brian! Great post, thank you for putting this information out there.
I graduated with a PR degree a little over two years ago and feel like there is a lot we miss out on in school. PR 2.0 what?! You and Dierdre have been very instrumental in changing all of that!! So thanks.... for the book and the info you put out about PR on a daily basis. Loving the knowledge :)
Aimee Greeblemonkey
· 7 months ago
Great post as always... and had to laugh at Alice's comment - good point there as well. ;)
Roxanne Darling
· 7 months ago
Thanks Brian - You captured my thoughts well (and saved me the time) though I did add a solutions' checklist on my blog. See the link on my name for reference.
Aloha, Roxanne
Sandra Fathi
· 7 months ago
Great post. Thank you for sharing all sides of the argument. I think that often marketers and PR folks are polarized on these issues and don't see the gray in the spectrum.
There has to be a clear disclosure when something is an 'advertisement' in a magazine - even if it is written in narrative form. I think it should be the same for online content. However, it isn't always completely clear what constitutes 'payment' and that's where it get sticky - in particular with product reviews.
I think this is something that we are going to grapple with for a long time to come - in particular as the lines between marketing and public relations blur and it becomes increasingly evident that the power of social networking/media is overtaking other forms of communication in consumer opinion formation and business decision-making.
Michael Martinez
· 6 months ago
Google's position on paid posts and paid links is totally unacceptable. They are not advancing the consumer's concerns -- they are only trying to make their ridiculous idea (PageRank) work despite the fact that research has shown citation analysis (from which PageRank is derived) is a poor indicator of quality.
Google's search results suffer from low quality because Google refuses to show the most relevant content first. If your documents don't have sufficient PageRank, they will be pushed down in Google's search results below less relevant content that has more PageRank.
Marketers have been driven by Google's policy of Web Apartheid to obtain PageRank in whatever ways they can, so Google only has itself to thank for the mess it created.
The Federal Trade Commission isn't concerned with how much the money search engines make from their advertising is affected by links -- Matt Cutt's repeated calls for "disclosure to search engines" are only self-serving.
If the quality of Google's search results were truly being impacted by link manipulation as much as that quality is being impacted by Google's horrible algorithm, Google could easily fix the problem by not allowing any links to pass PageRank.
They can still crawl the links to discover content.
They have always used traditional Information Retrieval scoring mechanisms to produce their results anyway. At this time Google is using PageRank to separate the Web into the "Will Be Ranked" and "Will Not Be Ranked" categories.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has begun talking about how the Web is a mess and maybe the solution to the mess is to only promote "brands" in search results.
But it appears from the rotten quality of Google search results for many consumer and entertainment-related queries that what Google considers to be "brand" sites consists of made-for-advertising, database-driven, user-generated-content mush sites that provide little to no real authoritative information or value.
Wikipedia, which Google employees like Matt Cutts have openly endorsed as "being good enough for people who don't know any better" because they are not experts, is a constantly changing source of information.
Imagine opening a phonebook that one days shows your correct address and telephone number and the next day shows something different.
Imagine opening a product catalog that one shows the right product picture and description and the next day shows something entirely different.
Imagine opening an encyclopedia that one day tells you Julius Caesar was the greatest military genius in Roman history and the next day says he owned a car wash in Poughkeepsie.
These are the brand quality sites that Google chooses to promote in its search results. These sites have garnered many links that don't in any constitute "votes" or judgments of quality -- they are simply links provided through a variety of mechanisms, most of them automated.
Google doesn't ask people to use "rel='nofollow'" on the links to the sites that Google favors in its search results -- only on links to sites that are competing with these others sites.
The real problem for Google is that it has opted to take the lazy path. Rather than indexing the Web, it just wants to index the large, self-generating sites that cannot guarantee quality because that's the easy approach.
Matt's hogwash about paid links, paid posts, and disclosure won't fix the seriously low quality problems in Google's search results.
Google needs to promote the most relevant content first, and leave the links to the Web, where they belong.
All Comments
Do you endorse all of the brand names you have cited?
Have you explicitly said so?
Why or why not?
Do you disapprove of any of them?
Would you mention or cite anything you disapprove of, or do none of the opinions you vehemently disapprove deserve to be mentioned?
If not all of the topics you agree with and/or disagree with are mentioned, how acan we be certain than you are perhaps not fully disclosing all of your endorsements, ratings of approval / disapproval, etc.?
See also:
On the Web, It’s Freedom 2, Publishing 0:) nmw
The problem is that Social Media Communications and engagement marketing in all of its forms (content syndication, influencer/blogger outreach, social networks, etc.) does not scale on the same level as ads; nor does it provide the same guarantees and "instant results" that effective online ads can and often do (key word being effective ads).
To me this highlights two much larger issues :
The idea of understanding scale v. engagement, and identifying best practices for achieving both (YES, it can happen as a part of the larger social media marketing mix);
and
Social Media: Project-centric short term gain v. Ongoing dialogue with long term results and brand affinity.
Brands and agencies still look at Social Media as a checklist solution (Facebook - check; Twitter - check;), and both entities need to understand that there are more qualitative and quantitative benefits to be garnered when you commit to having skin in the social media game. Look beyond the short-term "project-based" solution and develop a long-term strategy that consists of an ongoing, active presence and dialogue with consumers. This takes time and resources, and is not conducive to the instant gratification culture that we now live in (thanks in large part to technology and social media), and which both brands/agencies covet and unrealistically expect.
As for the bloggers - I've got no beef with their desire to get paid (aren't we all one way or another?) so long as they are transparent with the very fans who've followed them, trusted them, and given them the visibility that has allowed them to reap such financial rewards. And if it takes the FTC to ensure that bloggers are accountable and held to some standards, then so be it.
It's a sad portrait of the times that bloggers and influencers not admit to receiving product (or to inexcusably to pass paid text as legitimate editorial comment).
The responsibility of passing knowledge from one to another is a heavy weight. Being an influencer means accountability: to keep an eye on the bigger picture.
If one plans on being around for a while they should weigh the quick gift of payola versus the long term cost to their credibility.
I graduated with a PR degree a little over two years ago and feel like there is a lot we miss out on in school. PR 2.0 what?! You and Dierdre have been very instrumental in changing all of that!! So thanks.... for the book and the info you put out about PR on a daily basis. Loving the knowledge :)
Aloha,
Roxanne
There has to be a clear disclosure when something is an 'advertisement' in a magazine - even if it is written in narrative form. I think it should be the same for online content. However, it isn't always completely clear what constitutes 'payment' and that's where it get sticky - in particular with product reviews.
I think this is something that we are going to grapple with for a long time to come - in particular as the lines between marketing and public relations blur and it becomes increasingly evident that the power of social networking/media is overtaking other forms of communication in consumer opinion formation and business decision-making.
Google's search results suffer from low quality because Google refuses to show the most relevant content first. If your documents don't have sufficient PageRank, they will be pushed down in Google's search results below less relevant content that has more PageRank.
Marketers have been driven by Google's policy of Web Apartheid to obtain PageRank in whatever ways they can, so Google only has itself to thank for the mess it created.
The Federal Trade Commission isn't concerned with how much the money search engines make from their advertising is affected by links -- Matt Cutt's repeated calls for "disclosure to search engines" are only self-serving.
If the quality of Google's search results were truly being impacted by link manipulation as much as that quality is being impacted by Google's horrible algorithm, Google could easily fix the problem by not allowing any links to pass PageRank.
They can still crawl the links to discover content.
They have always used traditional Information Retrieval scoring mechanisms to produce their results anyway. At this time Google is using PageRank to separate the Web into the "Will Be Ranked" and "Will Not Be Ranked" categories.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has begun talking about how the Web is a mess and maybe the solution to the mess is to only promote "brands" in search results.
But it appears from the rotten quality of Google search results for many consumer and entertainment-related queries that what Google considers to be "brand" sites consists of made-for-advertising, database-driven, user-generated-content mush sites that provide little to no real authoritative information or value.
Wikipedia, which Google employees like Matt Cutts have openly endorsed as "being good enough for people who don't know any better" because they are not experts, is a constantly changing source of information.
Imagine opening a phonebook that one days shows your correct address and telephone number and the next day shows something different.
Imagine opening a product catalog that one shows the right product picture and description and the next day shows something entirely different.
Imagine opening an encyclopedia that one day tells you Julius Caesar was the greatest military genius in Roman history and the next day says he owned a car wash in Poughkeepsie.
These are the brand quality sites that Google chooses to promote in its search results. These sites have garnered many links that don't in any constitute "votes" or judgments of quality -- they are simply links provided through a variety of mechanisms, most of them automated.
Google doesn't ask people to use "rel='nofollow'" on the links to the sites that Google favors in its search results -- only on links to sites that are competing with these others sites.
The real problem for Google is that it has opted to take the lazy path. Rather than indexing the Web, it just wants to index the large, self-generating sites that cannot guarantee quality because that's the easy approach.
Matt's hogwash about paid links, paid posts, and disclosure won't fix the seriously low quality problems in Google's search results.
Google needs to promote the most relevant content first, and leave the links to the Web, where they belong.
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