Should I feel bad about a sponsored post? | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Hey Kris,

I think your friend needs to chill.  Of course I would side with you since I am a blogger, too.  But you have to understand, she isn't so she is entitled to her opinion, from a non-blogger point of view.  Digest what your friend said, but don't let it crush you.  Life is too short and tell your friend to get off her high horse.  She doesn't like it, she can stop using the internet.  

I wouldn't worry about your friend's opinion. They are entitled to be critical, and that is ok. At least they read your article, and recall the brand. So the post/advertisement has been effective on this one reader. They may suggest it to a friend or even use the service themselves one day.

I think you should fly your friend to Mexico and sell her for parts.   Waking up in a bathtub full of ice tends to make people re-examine what constitutes a bad business model.

Seriously, she can hate the internet all she wants.  It's her naiveté.  Websites cost time and money, and most of the ones worth reading are bringing in money is some form.   The ones that aren't, are still hoping for a book or magazine deal.   It's not selling out, it's how the internet works.  If she doesn't like it, she can stay home and watch some free and ad-free TV, err…read a free newspaper that doesn't contain ads…errr….listen to ad-free radio..errr….ride an ad-free bus…err….

Really, is she new to the 21st century?

I agree with the sentiments that one person's opinion is not something to base your blogging strategy on.

Regarding sponsored posts, I haven't done them in a long time, and the ones I did I might have posted on for free anyway.  It's basically a permanent link for a fixed fee, so if you haven't thought of it that way, there you go.

If I do guest posts (which I haven't done much of lately) it will be from other personal finance bloggers I know linking back to their own personal finance blogs.  Otherwise, it's a permanent link (or the expectation of such) for free.

Beyond that, people who market with articles like this, and the bloggers who accept them, are toeing the line of what the search engines — OK, search engine, Google — thinks about selling text links.  I want to stay far from that line because I like the traffic Google sends me.  I might go as far to say that my jump from PR3 to PR5 recently was partially due to me keeping my nose clean, which involves not accepting a lot of posts that might be posted elsewhere, and not selling text links.

Anyway, my two cents.  It's your blog and your voice that's being formed with each post and link you do.  Blog wisely. :)

Ouch! I would have freaked out over an email like that from a good friend as well.

I agree with what everyone has said above. You should not feel bad about wanting to be paid for your time, effort, and expertise. Unfortunately in the beginning to middle, until you hit superstar status, taking on sponsored posts and sidebar widgets that aren't always helpful or entirely meaningful to your audience is the way to get paid. Would you friend want to spend 20-30 hours a week working on a second job and not make any money from it?

I think that it's probably hitting you hard because it was a friend who said that. It's easy to criticize when she isn't the one doing the work and evaluating the people you'll accept sponsored posts for. I don't do sponsored posts on MoneyCrush (although I would write a review of something that I used if I got inspired to do so) but I do elsewhere and I think labeling it the way you did is perfectly fine. She acts like it's something new, when maybe what's new is that people are labeling stuff due to FTC regulations .

Hmm…that's really funny because as I left with distinct feeling about the post that was just the opposite of what your friend had experienced.  It read like a normal everyday Kris post and I didn't realize it was a sponsored post til the very end.

I thought to myself..wow, that's cool that Kris can take a sponsored post and still keep it very much true to the spirit of her blog.  I almost wrote you personally about it even.

I personally hate reading canned sponsored blog posts on other people's sites, so it was nice to have the best of both worlds…you get paid to do a sponsored post but also get my Kris Fix. 

I didn't think it was a sellout article at all and like others said your friend is extremely naive to think you'll get quality writing indefinitely for free.

Thank you so much for the support everyone. It is really a fine line sometimes on how to handle sponsored posts. I actually prefer to write them myself (like the one in question) because I can tailor it more to my audience and hopefully make it more meaningful. Some sponsored posts come across as so broken that I end up spending time on rewrites anyway, so might as well ask for more money and just write it myself.

My friend is someone I have known for over twenty years and she is incredibly blunt. She did respond to me today after I wrote her back and she said she came across way stronger than she meant to. While I appreciated the sentiment of her reply, I think she meant it all. She just has no clue about the blogging world and has some real black or white opinions.

Thanks so much for also reading the post and leaving your opinions. Your comments really made me feel a lot better and also gave me some things to thing about.

I wouldn't feel too bad about it.  I'm sometime conflicted about having sponsored posts on my blog but I need the money right now since blogging is a majority of my income.  You present yours with a disclosure and don't have too many of them so you don't need to feel bad at all.