Merchants and bloggers... a weird relationship in SL

[BadEddy]

just food for thoughts....   personal opinions about the merchants vs bloggers relation

 

Being surrounded by bloggers (you are as well I'm sure) I often hear them tell about their everyday blogger's life and I'm just amazed about all the stupid we (the merchants) make them endure. 

I'm amazed about the way merchant see this work relation: "You blog about my stuff to advertize my business and as a payment, I send you more stuff to advertize. Be sure to blog on a regular basis if you want to keep advertizing my business". Amazing they don't laugh at us. Let them blog by pleasure of blogging but please let's try to not look stupid. 

Try to use that same strategy with your local newspapers and magazine. See how they answer you.

Are we (the merchant) just very clever and exploiting a few naive bloggers or is it us, the merchants, who are naive enough to think this is how it should be done?

I've heard them all: "Take that post down you didn't blog the right dress color" or "You have to be THAT big to be allowed to blog about me" or "I didn't see a post about my stuff this week. You'll be kicked out of the group you know", etc, etc. 

 

Fellow bloggers:

How can you be credible to your readers if you obey the merchants like that? Your blog is  a media, not an advertizement flyer. Unless I got that wrong and your blog actually is a private newsletter for a few stores? Who wants to read that?

 

Fellow merchants

I know at the end the bloggers can pick what they want and just blog about it (many do). If they want to be on their knews and join store's blogger groups with weird ways and do what they are told, fine, nothing we can do about it. But we have to understand the less credible bloggers are, the less positive impacts they can have for us. Many blogger groups out there should be frown uppon and there should be more "promotion" for good blogging behaviors. 

 

Cheer

 

 

[Lua Aurelia]

Perfect real world example: IGN.  That gaming site is so heavily bribed by companies that I refuse to take them seriously.

 

They gave Mass Effect 3 a "perfect" score.  I mean, really?

 

On Topic: Maybe my store is not big enough to worry about bloggers yet, but I don't mind people blogging about my stuff.  It's free publicity.  I have yet to understand why some merchants feel the need to approve of bloggers; people WILL blog about your stuff the way they want to.  That's part of the freedom of the internet.

 

 

Shinga Z.

[Tamara Artis]

As I see it, when you are a new merchant you need as many good bloggers as you can get but most likely you will get same - new bloggers that are just starting out. I was lucky to get few good ones that actually care to show my product well. But few times it looked like they take 2.3 mins of their time to put on some random stuff and take a random snapshot. 

I made a couple pose where they are lying on a beach, holding hands and looking at each others eyes, one blogger made amazing photo and I was like omgomgggg!, the other was showing some dark punk/metal outfit with boots lol, on a beach and since the girl was waaay shorter she didn't bother to move her avi a bit so the hands were floating in the air and she was looking at the guys shoulder  

What I liked best is when a new blogger contacts me saying they want to blog my stuff and I say great just send me the list of items you want to get, they don't know any lol

[Aspire Rang]

What an amazing non-issue.

If you don't want merchants telling you how to blog, don't ask for or accept free merchandise. 

 

It's only a problem when you start trying to work in "How can I get free stuff,  and not be a big name, and not deal with demands all at the same time."

 

As a merchant you have no power to make someone not review your product on their blog but if they come to you asking for a freebie, neither are you obligated to provide it. If you are so inclined you can provide frebies with strings attached, but again, you only have power to the extent the bloger wants free stuff. 

 

Welcome to modern capitalism, where it's not a bribe as long as you use another word for it.

[IvanBenjammin]

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Aspire Rang wrote:

 

Welcome to modern capitalism, where it's not a bribe as long as you use another word for it.

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Can I use that line? Brilliant.

[Aspire Rang]

I dunno. What are ya offering?

[BadEddy]

Not sure what you are asking, Aspire

[IvanBenjammin]

Internet fame, guaranteed to last for at least 15 minutes!