Let’s talk about THE AD.
I’ve received my first real “oh no, not another advert” comment on one of my posts and I thought it was perhaps the chance to have a little chat about all things advertising, blogging, what I do and why I do it.
I am a blogger, or for a fancy pants term: digital influencer (which is almost always shortened down to “influencer” because despite wanting a certain level of fancy-shmancy, most can’t be arsed to be *that* fancy). So, digital influencer: it basically means that I am a person who has amassed a following on social medias that is both significant enough in it’s numbers to be meaningful and that I have an audience that is engaged and interested in what I have to say. I have “influence” in marketable terms… in reality, and not the deceptive world of marketing, I prefer to think of it as being bloody lucky enough to have a pretty amazing bunch of likeminded people who are willing to talk to me online. I’m a talker (witterer) and I like to have a good chin wag, and as such word of mouth takes over and we share things. Followers and readers share things with me, I share things with them. It’s a pretty bloody awesome position to be in, to be connected to so many people; and you can easily see why that is something that companies/brands want to get in on. It’s word of mouth on steroids really isn’t it?
So the ads.
I never lie, I never hide anything – for talking to you about my struggles with Edith as a baby to sharing my thoughts on parental matters. It’s important to me to be honest. That doesn’t stop with advertising. I’ve never tried to dupe anyone or pretend that I’m not paid to write posts, paid to promote things and gifted stuff. Never, and I never would. Anything you read on here, or see on my social media where I have been gifted something will say “we were given” and if I’ve been paid by a brand, you should see #ad.
Interestingly, lots of people don’t like to use “#ad, #advert, #sponsored” etc because people turn off, refuse to engagement and often just scroll by or in the case of Facebook make an observation about how many ads you’re doing. The truth is, if you follow an influencer on social media, they are likely going to be paid moola to talk to you about products, or sent products to write about, and it’s illogical at best to resent that. It’s no different to any other type of advertising apart from the fact that this is a REAL person, and 9/10 you will find that influencers will only take on paid work that they know their audience would be interested in.
Most recently, I took on work for Bupa, a campaign about taking time out for yourself, something I think is VITALLY important. Something I value, truly believe in and was honoured to work with them on. Before that I was all up in the Facebook and Instagram feeds, peddling frozen chicken because guess what, we eat chicken and it’s 10 x more convenient when it’s frozen. I was asked to create three recipes for Birds Eye and, forgive me for getting my #blessed on, but I felt dead excited to be able to do that. And yeah, bloody blessed. While I’m on a roll, what you didn’t see this week was the coffee diet supplement or the snack food that my son’s tried and didn’t like. Like I said, I try SO hard to make sure that this is stuff we use, love and would share if I met you in the street. I’ve also written sponsored content and said “Reuben would eat this, Toby wouldn’t” because, Honest.
I’m not trying to convince the naysayers here, I’m simply hoping that this will make people aware that Toby & Roo is full of adverts because I couldn’t maintain the socials, write the posts and attend the events I do if I wasn’t paid for this, or it wasn’t my career. I tell you when they are adverts so there is nothing underhand going on and I HOPE that the stuff I do advertise is liked by you, as much as it is by me.
If not, then truth be told, you can always scroll past it and wait for the meme.
If you want to ask ANY questions about influencer marketing, how I do what I do or anything at all please feel free to email me, tweet me, slide into my DMs (not in a creepy way… unless you make it fun then slide away) or comment here or on Facebook. I am ALWAYS happy to explain what I do to anyone interested or answer any questions about adverting or my brand!
H x
Ooh I definitely want to be called a digital influencer rather than blogger! Great post. Before blogging myself, I was hugely sceptical about sponsored posts giving genuine opinions but now know that bloggers have to be honest or risk losing their readership entirely. Being open about products will help companies in the long run and readers deserve a true impression of the item. I do worry about wording in my posts 🙁
Here here! Thank you for that! I think if someone doesn’t actually do blogging or know some people who are doing it, they don’t get the whole concept of why sponsored posts and ads are important to blogging. I know I didn’t before I started. I would read the “this post was gifted…..and does not effect my opinion” and would sort of go…”yeah…sure…” and now, I’m writing posts like that and hoping people don’t just shrug things off. ?
Along the same subject, companies don’t seem to understand why bloggers should be paid rather than just given a product or two to write about…and I didn’t either before I was a blogger. But I do now. Bloggers spend their time, resources, and efforts on creating posts, taking pictures, making videos, that reach thousands or more people, so it’s only appropriate that if they would pay an ad agency to reach people, that they would pay someone else who is doing much of the same. So it’s important for people to understand that, though bloggers may love to write, it’s a lot more than just that which goes into all of the posts we write.
Sorry for the ramble….but you are right on with this post, and I hope that some of the people who don’t understand do read it and maybe see things a little differently.
Thanks Amanda!It’s something that is still such a new career that people often dismiss it, but it shouldn’t be dismissed!