Should You Compensate Bloggers?

Bloggers can be an important part of your marketing plan. If you use a blog on your company site, hiring a blogger makes sense. Your blog stays regularly updated in a professional manner. And yes, you should absolutely give fair compensation to a writer in this capacity (as you would in any other business writing situation).

But what about when you try to get a blogger to write about you on their own blog? Or when you ask them to do a giveaway of your product? Do you compensate them at that point?

Think about this — do you compensate any PR or marketing people in your company or in a consulting firm? Is asking a blogger to write about your company any different?

That’s the question GeekMommy addresses in her recent post, Why Mom Bloggers Aren’t Flipping for Just a Sample of Your Product. It’s a big discussion that has been going on amongst the mom bloggers, and if they are in your target market, you should be reading this post.

It’s a constant battle to figure out what the right thing to do is at that moment since it does seem to change frequently. The best thing you can do is read a blog, get to know the person behind it, and then customize your pitch to fit them. And if they do ask to be compensated for their time — talk to them about what they want or expect. Your employees don’t work for free and many bloggers — who are professionals with educations and interests and opinions beyond what you see on their blog — don’t want to work for free either.

The market is constantly changing. Don’t be afraid to ask around and find out what bloggers want. Just don’t expect them to write about you for free. Those days are gone. And if you don’t believe it, just ask the bloggers themselves.

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