Paid bloggers

Paid blogger Programs
A new study published by adweek shows that blogging and user generated content created by paid conversations is cost effective and a successful way for brands to generate WOM. Certain brands such as Kmart are starting to experiment with this space and WOM marketing effort.
Many brands are compensating bloggers or reaching agreements with them and providing perks (such as flying them to tech conferences, etc) so that they will blog about their products or services. While compensation to bloggers should be made public, this is a low cost initiative compared to media buys and allows the brand to tap into the network and following of the blogger. This type of effort is categorized as something between PR outreach and advertising. This type of tactic makes sense for brands that need some help creating buzz when it initially wouldn’t and have a larger reach as well.
This does present ethical issues, where the consumers might start becoming suspicious of brands that use this type of marketing tactic. Also, if brands are later found not to have disclosed a paid conversation relationship, this could affect how the brand and blogger are viewed. A concern about authenticity and the level of honesty a blogger can have with such a relationship because the fear of a blogger is that if they write something negative, they will not be asked back to blog.



http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i9b282d63be07572ababcf16dfcb82fab