Can anyone think of a B2B industry sector where any of the ten most influential bloggers or tweeters operate on a pay-for-play basis?
I was talking last week to one of the heads of the so-called ‘influencer marketing platform providers’. His service actually just brokers relationships between vendor marketing depts. and those bloggers & tweeters willing to promote such vendors for payment. He claimed many ‘top’ bloggers are on his company’s books.
The payment from vendor to blogger is typically pay-by-results-based so ten tweets over a month by one person might cost $100 but by another with greater reach cost $1000. I can see why services like this are keen on the idea – they’re charging a 5-8% cut of any business generated – simply for introducing the marketer to the blogger.
I think every influential blogger / tweeter I can think of would run a mile from such a service. They value their independence too much and accepting a pay-for-play deal would instantly kill both their credibility and their dignity.
There clearly are bloggers more than willing to be paid to write. But nothing tells me they’re the influential ones. Or am I wrong? Is there even one industry sector where influential bloggers do take direct commercial payment for writing about particular vendors? I’d be keen to know.
If I hear of any I’d love to apply our company’s methodology to track their level of market influence and see how that influence is being impacted.