You can read the posting on SocialSpark (that’s Izea’s posting service) where British Airlines outlines what they require to be included in the post. The paid post provides for $15 in earnings although I believe some Izea posters make more than what is listed.

It’s interesting that the posts from Jordan and Meghan basically follow the required script from British Airways exactly. Is that where the “real opinion” comes from? One requirement is that the post is more than 200 words; Meghan’s comes in below that at 186 words. Both bloggers provide a small button to note that the post is paid although it is at the bottom of the post. I know Izea founder Ted Murphy talks about the importance of disclosure is his network’s paid posts which is a good thing. One change I’d like to see is that the button is moved to the top and clear language is added to the top of every post noting that the post is paid. You may never even see the button on the two blogs because of the non-traditional layout that the NonSociety site employs.

Meghan begins by noting, “In scouring the web for travel deals, I came across a promotion that British Airways is having in November called the World Sale.” What’s interesting here is that I didn’t realize that when people are looking for travel deals they search on SocialSpark. I am a travel deal hunter like no other and now I have to remember this the next time I am planning a trip. Meghan “found” pricing for the special although she didn’t have to look far as the pricing is listed on the direct link from the Izea website. She does include her opinion that she enjoyed her flights on BA and that her dream destination is Dubai. The posting did require her to note where her favorite destination is. I wonder if they had required her to note her favorite soda – would she have included the word Pepsi in the post? I actually think Meghan made a mistake with her links and SocialSpark won’t even be able to report any clicks back to BA.

Jordan does a better job of making a full post out of the ad. Jordan runs a good amount of paid posts. Jordan includes her favorite destination and I like how she makes sure to include the word “Upgraded” per the post requirements. She does an decent job at making the post feel “real”. Jordan ends her post by stating that her next overseas trip will be on BA. It will be interesting to read her review after the next flight.

This campaign would have read better as an advertorial than to try to jam in 1-2 sentences of “opinion” around what is clearly a nearly 200 word ad. I’ve said for a long time that, employed correctly, advertorials could work well for bloggers. And over the past 6-9 months we are seeing more blogs running this advertising format.

If you are new to SocialSpark and Izea, check out this video overview with CEO Ted Murphy from last year.

Paid posts, sponsored reviews and paid shilling has been a hot topic in the press recently. The FTC is requiring disclosure beginning next month. This past weekend there were a variety of pieces written about mommy bloggers. Steven Hodson takes a look at the issue and notes, “If you are going to do nothing but write high praises about all the stuff you have gotten for free don’t call yourself a blogger of any kind – you’re a shill.” This is something I’ve questioned for years now – show me paid bloggers who continue to get work when they provide a negative paid reviews. To-date my questions have gone unanswered. Steven wrote a follow-up post about the importance of honesty.

I am working on an indepth opinion post about this topic which I hope to have finished within the next week. I’ve spent a good deal of time on paid post analysis and have some interesting findings to share. I very much enjoy debating this topic from all angles.

The group is paid with options, not direct cash. The group includes: Chris Brogan, Michael Brito, Brian Clark, Jim Kukral, Neil Patel, Wendy Piersall, Jeremy Schoemaker and Missy Ward.

The bloggers are responsible for disclosing when they post about Izea. Seems like your typical advisory role trade: stock/options for insight along with some linking from time-to-time. The group will meet at Izea’s HQ in December. I look forward to reading the minutes from the meeting.

While I am not a fan of paid reviews, I am all for paid advertorials on blogs. We are starting to see more advertorials popping up and my hope is that we see more going forward.

It’s interesting to see Neil Patel’s name on the list given his arrangement with Techcrunch. As many of you know, Techcrunch doesn’t like Izea.

SocialSpark

Murphy explains that the core benefits of SocialSpark are: brand awareness, word of mouth, traffic generation, social media optimization, and content creation. The admin panel they built is actually quite impressive.

I have a variety of concerns with SocialSpark and paid reviews in general. Here’s just one concern. there’s no requirement for the review to be positive but let’s be honest here. If you write 2-3 negative reviews, what company is going to want to send you their gadget? Zip.

As I’ve written about numerious times before, I’d love to see a blog advertorial network. No reviews, just advertorials. As more blogs move to RSS, I believe we will see more advertorials popping up.

He begins by explaining that he purchased a one-month advertisement on ReadWriteWeb for $3,000 and then purchased $3,000 worth of paid posts within the IZEA network. The paid posts came from 220 publishers of all sizes across the network.

His analysis then goes on to determine that 725 clicks came from RWW over the month while his paid blog posts delivered 832 clicks and that the paid blog posts will continue to return some value over time as the posts live on forever (whatever forever means in Internet years). 

Murphy also notes that by posting the "job" on his network, he had at least another 500 of his paid bloggers check out the company – that’s already nearly more than RWW sent. He ends the analysis with the following statement, "people clicking links in sponsored posts have a genuine interest in the site they are clicking through to." The average Internet user has no idea what sponsored means. I’ve tried to explain this to Jason Calacanis as well but shrugged it off. 

Was IZEA’s product the right one for the RWW audience? For example, last month TechCrunch ran a sponsor ad for car tires. Do people looking for the latest tech news care about car tires? Are they in the "zone" to go purchase a set of 170R15s? We know nothing about the people who visited from either RWW or the purchased blog posts. How many from either actually "converted"? Murphy leaves this out.

While Murphy’s analysis isn’t spot on and there are some huge holes in his theory, he is pushing the conversation of display advertising versus paid posts a step further. It’s a good discussion to have. And for clarity, I am not in favor of paid reviews. I am totally in favor of advertorials on blogs. Mark my words that by the end of 2008 we will see advertorials on blogs as a normal course of business.

Murphy makes a challenge at the end to Pete Cashmore, Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis. He wants to run a paid post on one of their sites and compare the results to a wide campaign using the publisher network on IZEA. I assume he won’t get any takers for the test.

Over my years in a role where I either made decisions or was party to the decisions at one of the largest public companies, so many Internet marketing scams came across my desk. The one thing I said all along was that if anyone finds out you are running a scam, it will be bad… very bad.

Before we jump into the info below – let me say that gaming only works for a short time because eventually everyone begins to game the same way. Dan speaks about 100k views, eventually its 1m, 5m, etc. And the most important part is what Dan leaves out – the real net benefit – which there probably is none. Anyone can get numbers my friend. Is Dan selling us the new paid post which just happens to be a video?

Tonight we have Dan Greenberg who is the newest infomercial salesman – "I can get you to 100k views on your video!" — Reminds me of the guy who in his latest infomercial now teaches others how to sell infomercials because he wanted to finally show everyone how to do it. And now Dan is doing the same for us! Is this what he is teaching the new class at Stanford where he is a TA?

Dan can’t tell us who his clients are because naturally it would ruin them. Don’t worry Dan, we already know.

I love part 3 – "The Core Strategy" – which is basically to fake everything and pay to get hits. Here is one nugget, "Blogs: We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos. Sounds a little bit like cheating/PayPerPost, but it’s effective and it’s not against any rules." LAWL.

Dan also teaches us thumbnail optimization – "It’s no surprise that videos with thumbnails of half naked women get hundreds of thousands of views."

The good doctor sums up the article better than I ever could, "That is, when there is financial incentive and opportunity to game a system — even when that system has the appearance of being “open”, “transparent”, and built upon the goodwill and trust of its users (how typically quaint!) — someone will do it."

Howard Lindzon notes, "Forget the tricks, the ones given are old news. They don’t build audience. Who cares about 100,000 views. Wallstrip does not have one video on YouTube with 100,000 views. That was never important to Adam, Jeff and I…audience was. That comes from showing up every day with an idea and a focus. That created influence. I would say we proved that."

The part Howard leaves out is that marketers and advertisers still care (unfortunately) about numbers instead of the audience he speaks of.

Lastly, Ashkan Karbasfrooshan weighs in with, "It’s a numbers’ game, for sure, but you shouldn’t be cooking the numbers to win.  Call me naive, call me idealistic, but that’s my philosophy."

Look, here is the bottom line in a much shorter post than the one on TC – any system will be gamed. And any system where there is a financial stake will be gamed even further. But it lasts for a short time and the negative consequences far outweigh the temporary benefit.

Ted notes, "I find it laughable that high profile bloggers like TechCrunch aren’t being penalized in the same way. Perhaps it’s the fact that they use AdSense. Perhaps it’s the fact that they are silicon valley insiders and are invited to special Google events. Either way I don’t see the difference between a sponsored post in our system or this sponsored post. Both are paid for, neither use no-follow."

I have these type of "thank you sponsor" posts on CN as well. These are not reviews. These are simple links thanking the sponsors of a site. And I have reviewed hundreds of products and books over the last 10 years on HTMLCenter.

I am all for paid advertorials for blogs. I pushed ReviewMe to look at this and they have added it as an option. If Izea moved from paid reviews to advertorials, it would be fine as well. And I will put all my chips in that it would actually increase Izea’s business. Check out an example advertorial on Silicon Alley Insider. With RSS so prevalent, advertorials are a great way to hit the RSS base. If advertorials worked, there would be no need for paid reviews.

There has been a lot of talk about paid links and now paid reviews and Google’s stand on them. Is it because Google wants to be the only one selling links? At the size and power Google is at, can they still operate as a "normal going concern? Mathew and Andy have some additional differing insights.

The issues many of us have with Payperpost, the old ReviewMe and other services where you "buy" a review are removed with this advertorial service. No more concerns about the blogger posting a positive review because they are receiving payment. I am assuming the post will be provided by the advertiser and the blogger will have a chance to approve or decline. I can't wait to see the pricing on these full-page ads.

Here is an offline example: Today I was offered a NY Daily News newspaper for free. The only catch? The front page and the back cover were ads. The entire paper was exactly the same. Same thing with an online advertorial.

I have an email into Patrick to get more information on the new service as the web site doesn't have many details and he wouldn't share any pre-launch details with me even though I threatened to make him eat hot dogs from a NYC cart for a week.

I spoke with Patrick and here is what he sent along (my emphasis):

We feel with the launch of our Advertorial product we have a product that rises above the controversy of sponsored blog posts. Our Advertorials feature:
– by default a "SPONSOR POST:" tag in the post title.
– all links within Advertorials are redirected so the Advertiser gets click and impression tracking.

Check out our previous coverage on ReviewMe and Payperpost. And disclaimer: this was not a paid post, an advertorial, just my thoughts!