You need to read this first, or my response will make no sense. If you’re anything like me, that post won’t make any sense either, but that’s okay. I don’t think it’s meant to.
***
It had been a week since Bloggerbelle had talked with “Sarah” from the land of PR and she was beginning to feel like she’d been duped. She had read Sarah’s version of the conversation and she was rather displeased with how she’d been portrayed. She certainly wasn’t as stupid as Sarah thought she was and she suspected that Sarah was actually a witch, trained in the art of double talk and confusion.
After stewing on these facts for a while, she decided to travel to the land of PR and confront Sarah. Leaving her child with a baby sitter (Sarah might have claimed she was a beautiful princess of Blog, but she was wrong about a lot of things) she travelled for a long time to reach Sarah’s kingdom.
The people of PR were tricky you see and frequently moved around to curtail complaints, and avoid the worst of the dark and stormy weather.
When she finally found Sarah, they sat down together for a coffee. Bloggerbelle had lots of questions.
‘Sarah, when last we spoke, I walked away confused. We spoke about compensation and giveaways and yet, I don’t feel that my questions were addressed, or even adequately represented in the post you wrote.’ Bloggerbelle continued. ‘I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said I was asking for compensation. I was approached by people from the land of PR, who asked if I would review a product and host a giveaway. Then I was disheartened when my requests for compensation were turned down.’
Sarah looked at her and then spoke carefully, ‘Bloggerbelle, we discussed the problem of compensation, remember?’
‘I remember, and yet, I walked away without learning anything’. Bloggerbelle hardened her mind to any tricks that Sarah was trying to use on her.
‘The land of PR offered me a product to review and then giveaway on my blog and yet, they wouldn’t give me compensation for the time and effort required to run a giveaway. Tell me Sarah, are you being paid?’
‘Well, yes, I’m being paid but -‘
‘Are you being paid in money? Honest to goodness money? Or does the King of PR send you home at the end of the week with product samples to see you through?’
‘It’s not the point! I’m doing my job!’
Bloggerbelle had thought about this on the long trip to the land of PR.
‘Sarah, I am doing my job too. I am spending time writing copy for a blog post, I am moderating comments and organising a giveaway, don’t I deserve to get paid also?’
Sarah looked annoyed. Very annoyed. Dark clouds gathered above her head and Bloggerbelle started to realise why the land of PR was dark and stormy.
‘I accept that you are taking time and effort to put together a blog post, but you’re a blogger! We don’t have a budget to pay bloggers!’
Bloggerbelle didn’t agree that there wasn’t a budget.
‘Sarah, I think you do have a budget, otherwise you wouldn’t have a client. I just don’t think you’re willing to share any part of your budget with bloggers.’
Sarah spluttered a bit and Bloggerbelle tried a different tack.
‘Sarah, I am using my trust capital and my sphere of influence to promote a product for your client. I have worked hard to build up an audience and regardless of what you think of their worth, I know that I am worth more than a few boxes of cereal.’
Sarah looked shocked as Bloggerbelle kept talking.
‘You might believe that we’re all alike in the Land of Blog Sarah, but we’re not. I know that if I turn down a chance to work with you that you will find someone else willing to work for nothing. I am okay with this. I am concerned with my long term reputation, not my short term gain. And frankly, if people assume I’m getting paid anyway, then why should I do the work for nothing?’
Bloggerbelle stood up quickly and nodded to Sarah. Without a backwards glance, she left Sarah still spluttering behind her.
While she wasn’t yet sure what she wanted to get out of her blog, she did know that she wasn’t prepared to sell herself for nothing. After all, how could she give her child all the pretty things in the kingdom if she wasn’t being paid for anything?
She knew that she was worth more than that and she wasn’t prepared to sell herself short.
Sweet story 🙂
Hah! Touche! Very nice response. Naturally, it will go over their heads.
Love it! Industry is very good at cutting costs. It seems the advertising/marketing industry has found that blogging world can provide a no-cost service through a personal review. But really, they pay celebrities to review products, so why not the bloggers?
I do not wish to read advertising in a blog. Such sites do not get return traffic from me. You would lose credibility in my eyes if it was to become a feature of your site (which I”m sure it won’t). I’m OK with ads on the sidebars, provided they do not run an automatic video that chews up my bandwidth (even if I press pause). The adverts on the newspaper sites that churn over automatically annoy the heck out of me. I particularly detest the pop-up. bartleby.com is particularly bad with the Beiber pop-up blaring at me and it’s been driving me nuts for months, but the Gray’s Anatomy online has been useful when I’ve not had a text to hand.
PR is all about spin. My boss is a master of it, with staff and clients and and outside business. I’ve had to learn to read between the lines a bit (something I”m not really equipped to do), because anyone in PR or sales rarely gives a straight answer. Sarah has done a masterful sales pitch, but if she’s also in business and ultimately, her allegiance is to her employer and her client. In asking you to review a product she is effectively contracting you. So Sarah, tell your clients.boss to cough up!
Wow Veronica. It seems so obvious. Work=pay. In money. Good on you for saying no.
As Catch the Kids said, it seems so obvious when you put it like that. You have such a brilliant way with words.
Gosh. What a brave little bloggerbelle you are. She’s not that into blogs so Sarah must have really liked you. (And that I know who you’re talking about indicates quite how interested in Sarah’s client I am… I would have been kisstushablely easy to take advantage of (in this case) so, considering how cross I get about Australian arts writers not getting paid enough, I’m pleased they chose you. Well done angel. I’ll follow you for here on in.
I’ve never actually had any contact with Sarah (I’m not well known enough for that!), the story was a fictional spoof of her most recent post about fairytales. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.
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