Blogger Advertorials

I just read Jeremiah Owyang's post on Forrester Research's new report Add Sponsored Conversations to Your Toolbox. I have a lot of respect of Jeremiah. I read his blog and follow him on Twitter. So the following is by no means a dis to him. I'm just honestly confused and his post prompted the confusion, so I'm using it to get into this little missive.

But honestly, after reading his post and the associated post by Sean Corcoran that Jeremiah points us to, II still don't get it.

In his post, Jeremiah points out that Forrester has determined paid blogger content is fine so long as

“1) sponsorship transparency and 2) blogger authenticity.

Sponsorship transparency means that both the marketer and the blogger must make it absolutely clear to the reader community that they are reading paid content – think of Google Adwords “Sponsored Links.” Blogger authenticity means that the blogger should have complete freedom to write in their own voice – even if the content they write about the brand is negative.”

Did it really take a Forrester team to figure this out? Is it just me or is this common sense? As a consumer, if you're giving me good content on a passion I care about and you're clear that you're getting paid by a brand that benefits from my reading the content -- I'm fine with that. What consumer wouldn't be? Now if you're just a shill... then of course, that is out of bounds. And if you're just a disclosed shill, I'll figure that out soon enough and stop visiting.

Jeremiah points out that  "Sponsored conversations, although controversial,..." which is equally interesting to me. Interesting because I'm not sure why any blogger or Social Media person would really have an issue with properly disclosed paid blogging. Hell, even the Pope has a sponsor but that doesn't make his message every Sunday less valuable.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this or if I'm just tossing something disruptive out there in hopes that you, my readers can help me get my head around this "issue" and why it's so complex that Forrester felt the need to actually write a report. If you've got some thoughts, please share them. Seriously. Thanks.