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What’s Wrong With Pay for Play? Why is Pay for Play Unethical?

What's Wrong With Pay for Play? Why is Pay for Play Unethical?

First, what is the distinction between pay for performance and pay for play?

One of the primary concerns about Pay for Performance and Pay for Play and even with Relationship Based PR has to do with the risk of payment to the journalist or media organization without adequate disclosure. Money is a powerful incentive. If you pay a PR person $15,000 to 25,000 for a five minute interview and placement on a prime time national TV show and half of it goes to a producer who agreed to booked the show then that is a serious issue. It presents something as objective reporting instead of identifying it clearly as advertising. Does everyone disclose their back door payments? Not really.

At least in my experience, most publicists who offer pay for performance are also highly ethical about what they do. The reason is that while success speaks loud, failure speaks much louder indeed, and unethical and illegal behavior fairly screams across the planet. And as in politics, there are, of course, consequences for getting caught.

The higher costs associated with pay for performance are a testament to how difficult it is to be successful. The publicist must take the risk for their time and effort instead of being paid for their time and effort. So yes, publicists do tend to take care when accepting PFP clients. Clearly, it is exceedingly difficult to be successful with poor quality books and inexperienced authors or those who aren’t qualified in the eyes of the media.

The key thing here is to follow the money. If the money gets to the journalist, then the disclosure is required by the FTC. With Pay for Performance, you pay the publicist for success, but the risk is that the media is getting paid, too.

What’s the Problem with Pay for Play?

With pay for play, you pay the media for their time or to cover production or whatever. With relationship based PR, you pay the publicist for the inside connection or referral, or you pay to be at an event where journalists and producers are there, and there is a risk they are receiving payment above ethical guidelines of requirements. With retainer based and task based, you pay the publicist to pitch and there is no payment to the media. It’s the content that is the determining factor.

There is a growing number of media who will charge you a fee and then give you coverage. It’s an ongoing issue in society.

Pay for play poses a growing ethical issue in social media, blogs, paid reviews, media placements in print, and on radio and TV. FTC 16 CFR Part 255 states anyone receiving a product (book, TV, widget) for review is considered to be paid with the product and must be disclosed.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)’s code now states that ethical practitioners must “encourage disclosure of any exchange of value that influences how those they represent are covered.” The value exchanged may take the form of cash, travel, gifts or future favors.

http://www.prsa.org/SearchResults/view/8138/105/PRSA_speaks_out_on_Pay_for_Play_strengthens_Code_o#.Usnlf9JDss0

You can pitch blogs and receive responses from mommy and techie bloggers (from $5 and $10 to $300) to radio shows and even major network and syndicated TV shows saying they’ll be happy to write about you or do a show, if you only pay for the costs of production ($3,000 to $5,000).

Steve Bennett wrote a column in PR Week and said:

“At The New York Times you can’t even accept a free lunch from a contact. And the AP sets a limit of $10 on the size of any benefit received by a journalist.”

http://www.prweekus.com/when-earned-media-becomes-paid-for/article/254180/

The relationship based poses similar ethically questionable situations. It sounds great to hear a PR firm or publicist say that they are on personal terms with a journalist or a host or producer at a big TV show. What’s the problem?

We rely on media to be impartial and to give everyone fair and honest consideration.

Many see this particular style of doing business as a slippery slope that is very susceptible to corruption that undermines the very core of objective reporting and fairness in journalism. There are public relations firms and service providers who offer to place you in front of a group of journalists for a fee. Is it any different than the payments of lobbyists and political action committees in exchange for a meeting with a lawmaker or a politician?

The gold ol’ “hey I’ll buy you lunch meetings”, with drinks, and even, the payment of transportation and even stays at hotels, and more in exchange for coverage. These can turn into lucrative clandestine long-term arrangements where favorable repeat coverage goes to people, companies, organizations, who can afford to pay for the privilege to speak with journalists. What if the PR firm slips a commission fee to the journalist or a “production cost reimbursement” to the media organization?

Do the journalists and their media organizations disclose all financial and other “gifts” faithfully? Do our politicians disclose all their donations, donors, and payments? OK I’m in dreamland.

The next time you see a TV news magazine show look closely for “FTC Disclosure” with the list of sponsors in the credits at the beginning (“The following is paid by our sponsors”.) and the end of the show (the quickly scrolling list of sponsors). Do you even see it?

Paying for Book Reviews and Sponsored Blog Posts

Paying for Book Reviews and Sponsored Blog Posts

Very interesting article in the NY Times about paying for book reviews.

Paying for Book Reviews http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/business/book-reviewers-for-hire-meet-a-demand-for-online-raves.html?pagewanted=all

or

http://goo.gl/YLCqh

The 331 comments are about as entertaining and interesting to read as the article.

I have watched with interest the growing recent pay for reviews phenomenon.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of paying for reviews, but like it or not people do like to read reviews and comments. Hence book reviews have become an item that people are apparently willing to pay for.

The challenge for authors and publishers is to get noticed in the marketplace. The publicity that reviews can supply is one of the ways they seek to achieve recognition.

The media coverage can be about the book, the author, the issues, the comments, the commenters, or the controversy — it’s whatever gets people interested enough so that they buy the book.

In some cases, it’s the book and the content and the quality that produce the interest.

In other cases, the book may not be all that great of a piece of writing, yet the dialog in the marketplace that is sometimes created becomes a self-sustaining wave that by itself generates a desire in society that needs to be satisfied by curiosity. The presence in media, whether it be prime media or online media doesn’t matter if sufficient people are motivated to click and buy, in hard copy or ebook format.

The reviews – good, bad, indifferent, ethically acquired merit-based, or purchased, and hence allegedly tainted by the financial interest, well, it doesn’t matter if it generates sales.

When I send out news releases in the past year, I’ve watched a new growing trend for media, especially bloggers, to come back with a request for sponsored posts – e.g., pay in exchange for coverage. This is a growing phenomenon. I’ve seen it growing in the mommy bloggers, the fashion bloggers, and in the college online services. We see the fees for paid reviews start at $5 a post to $300 for a product review and more. We’ve seen major TV networks charge $300 for a five to ten minute satellite uplink and even seen some “creative” major network TV shows pitch their services and capabilities to create a show back to use with $5,000 fees for a 30 minute interview that gets aired on prime time TV.

Is it worth it? Maybe. For some.

Does it matter that more and more people are seeking to get paid for their time, their effort, and the coverage they provide?

Media coverage has significant perceived value. This is known. We also know that feature stories tend to be more valuable than reviews. But even reviews have value and get read, forwarded, tweeted, and contribute to the search engine placement of owner sites.

There are objective trusted media (Associated Press and the Voice of America). There are media who express certain bias one way or the other (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX). There are media you can rely on for certain types of coverage and reporting because of their appeal to their dedicated paying audiences (ESPN, Oxygen, O magazine, Cosmopolitan, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Reader’s Digest) and there’s media who simply report the entertaining or outrageous (The Enquirer, The Star) and the tantalizing and sexy (NY Post, Playboy, Penthouse and more). It may be print, electronic, or it may be online.

Coverage is what everyone is after. Some are obviously willing to pay to be there.

There are ethical (non-paying, objective, honest) reviewers and financially conflicted (paying, inherently-biased, allegedly dishonest) reviewers as well.

Some comply with the FTC disclosure requirements, and many don’t.

Obviously, it’s become a buyer beware marketplace. There is no reliable ever present policeman in the marketplace to protect innocent viewers from those who would take their money despite the FTC’s disclosure requirements.

Some of my clients actually have decided to experiment and pay for the coverage. In some cases the posts can be very useful in terms of the SEO value, since they trigger media coverage online and in social media.

The hits, the traffic, links, tweets, and conversation generated downstream can be significant enough to justify the costs.

But there is no way to predict the break even costs or value.

If you have an expensive product or multiple products or streams of income, then it may be in your favor.

If you are a single ebook author, and it is your first time, well, and need to sell a thousand $.99 books just to break even on your investment then it is a risk that YOU have to determine. It may be a role of the dice. You better think twice and enter the marketplace with your eyes open.

In any case, getting the word out there is something you have to try to do if you are going to seek the financial reimbursement of your time and energy. Being systematic, strategic and taking careful action to reduce your risks and maximize your gain, well that is something I highly recommend you do.

Reach out your target audience and turn them on. You can do this by creating a great book or delivering valuable helpful content. You can do this by doing what you do best or by creating controversy and getting other people to talk about you.

There are lots of reasonable strategies that you can use to trigger the interest that results in sales. You just have to create a good workable plan and schedule, get it going, and learn to do the things that work for you.

I’ve written a few more posts about the paying for book reviews issue. If you are interested in reading more, here’s a link:

http://blog.directcontactpr.com/2010/08/paying-for-book-reviews-is-it-worth-it/

or

http://goo.gl/xUvS0

The History of Valentine’s Day – Results of a Media Campaign

Mini-brag about the results of a media campaign

In late January I conducted a news release campaign for Maggie Lamond Simone, author of the hilarious book about adulthood titled From Beer to Maternity.

Would you believe that the campaign netted her over 50 media requests for review copies, interviews and column requests?

Among the accomplishments: An invitation to blog regularly (whenever she wants actually) on Huffington Post (from Arianna Huffington herself, yes the one and only, creator of the site).

So here for your reading enjoyment is Maggie’s first column in HP all about:

The History of Valentine’s Day:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maggie-lamond-simone/the-history-of-valentines_b_459702.html

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! May your day be better that the man in who’s honor we apparently celebrate this very special day.

Free Book Publicity Podcast – Are News Releases Effective for Marketing Your Book?

Are News Releases Effective for Marketing Your Book? You betcha!

On November 19th, 2009 I had a wonderful time being interviewed for Authors Access with Victor R. Volkman and Irene Watson about whether Press Releases are still revelant to marketing and promoting books.

We covered a wide-range of talking points, including:

* So What Exactly Is A News Release?

* Why Is This So Hard To Do? What Makes This So Special?

* So What Exactly Do Media People Look For When They Receive A News Release?

* So What Do You Need To Do To Write A News Release That Really Works & Truly Gets Media Attention?

* How do you know when you’re ready?

* What Specifically Should Authors Do To Create This Galvanizing Candy ­This Magic Script.

* What is the Magic Formula (DPAA+H)? (“Dramatic Personal Achievement in the face of Adversity, plus a little Humor”)

* Which Are Better For Authors To Aim At – Book Reviews Or Feature Stories & Why?

* How do you know when you achieve success with a news release?

* So once you have a trash proof news release, what do you do with it

Download the free Authors Access podcast interview free at:

http://authorsaccess.com/archives/164
A pdf file that summarizes all the talking points is also available here:

Are News Releases Effective for Marketing Your Book? http://www.directcontactpr.com/files/files/arepressreleasesaneffectiveway.pdf

The Trash Proof News Releases is available as a free ebook at Smashwords:

Trash Proof News Releases

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/5921

If you write what you think is a trash proof news release, send it to me and I’ll send you my extra two bits!

Paul@DirectContactPR.com

Achieving Publicity Success: Mommy Bloggers Are Very Important!

Tactics for successfully marketing and publicizing with mommy bloggers

Bloggers are quite important to all of us who do work in the world of publicity. Mommy bloggers are really crucial!

Who are the best ones with regard to marketing and publicizing a book or a product?

Well, it depends. There are now several thousand of them and their ranks are growing every day. Perhaps 20 to 25 percent of the media who write on family and parenting matters are now blogging regularly.

Mommy bloggers are simply mothers who blog. They don’t publish in magazines or newspapers. They just blog where people can find them – in the news search engines and specialty blog search engines. The originality and creativity or their unique perspective is what generates their audience.

Many of them offer up a highly personal view of parenting, women’s general interest, fashion, wifehood, love, romance, health, fitness, food and cooking, husbands, kids, and the challenges that go with being the head of the household.

Some are funny, some are serious, some are highly intellectual, some are sexy, some are not.

Many of them offer their experiences or opinions on the subjects that they decide are worthy and provide reviews of products, books, recipes, movies, TV shows, celebrities, politicians, even things like astronomical events, and quantum physics.

Some of them are highly regarded and have very dedicated audiences who relish their every post. The number of people and the demographics of their audiences vary.

I mean if you want to spend some time with a yenta, go see your local mommy blogger. Mommy bloggers know how to spread the word!

I’ve transmitted news releases about books and products to Mommy Bloggers and the responses, benefits and results for the author/owner have at times rivaled and even exceeded that produced by conventional prime media.

Mommy bloggers are a force to be recognized and utilized!

When you decide to do publicity you should make sure that you do your best to contact Mommy Bloggers if you have something that is of interest to Mommys everywhere.

Brief them in, share with them what you’ve created, tell them why it’s good and who will benefit from what you’ve created, and by all means, offer them a review copy or product sample if you can afford to do so. Offer to send them additional information, especially good photography.

Be forewarned! Some of them will only write about you favorably if you send them chocolate!

Here’s a web site that ranks the top mommy bloggers based on voter popularity.

Here’s TOPMOMMYBLOGS.com

http://www.topmommyblogs.com/blogs/index.php

Not all media are created equal – targeting the right media – targeted PR

Not all media are created equal - targeting the right media - targeted PR

Targeting the right media takes special skill.

They say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. It’s exposure in front of people in any case. Right?

But it can also be true that even good publicity in the right media may not be worth very much in the way of immediate direct sales.

When was the last time you read a newspaper article and ran and grabbed your credit card and the phone?

When was the last time you watched a TV interview or a commercial and felt compelled to buy the product or service featured?

Then again when was the last time you read a post to a blog or a forum or an ezine describing a solution or a tip and found it so good that you went to the web site and contacted the owner, or bought a service or product site unseen?

The point here is that the context of the message and the medium are both important.

The right message has to be in the right media and your audience also has to be in the right state of mind to be receptive and even open to taking action.

You target your media by asking what do my customers read, watch or listen to, especially when they are in the mood to hear and act on information related to what you are offering.

This leads you to the right media.

The right media could be prime media: newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, news services or syndicates.

Prime media are still one of the most powerful and trusted media for the masses. Each media is a business that makes its income from paying subscribers and from advertisers who also invest money in advertising because of the number of subscribers.

The right media can also be online: blogs, Internet online media web sites, articles sites, forums, ezines, mailing lists, discussion groups, and social media and networking sites.

The right media is media where enough of the people who see the message take the action you want them to take.

There is no way to know for sure which ones will produce fruit until you place your message out there and see what happens.

You find them where you find them.

Marketing and Publicizing an e-book online – poetry and more

Conducting a targeted online marketing and promotion campaign

I agree that marketing poetry can be an expensive and endeavor with low return on investment. That said, I see a lot of my poet clients embarking on personal branding campaigns that eventually produce significant fruit.

In fact, as a publicist I see the same problem occurring with all sorts of self published as well as mainstream published books.

I believe that it can be done. It is not hopeless. It is challenging and it does take skill, excellence, and devotion.

So here’s some ideas and a strategy about how to create an online presence that generates interest, and ultimately sales. Many of my clients do this as they work with me on the publicity. In fact, when this online strategy is coupled with targeted publicity, and judicious integrated marketing offline, the best results are always forthcoming.

Here’s my recommendations on what to do online.

You have to be willing to post some of your best poetry (or content no matter what you write or create) so that people see what you write, and enjoy it so much that they get interested in buying everything you have for sale.

This is the formula for professional branding that I also advocate with problem solving tips articles, humor, music and other creative works.

Offer a little of your very, very best work. Shine. Sparkle. Dazzle people. Amaze people. Make them sweat, make them cry, make them laugh.

But whatever you do, do it very quickly. You only have between 10 to 20 seconds to hook them and no more than 3 minutes to convince them totally.

It’s like people get to see the tip of the iceberg and it’s so good and intriguing, they develop a desire for more.

It’s like finding a diamond in the rough, or seeing a glint in the dirt and grabbing it and finding out it’s a gemstone.

The key is to post something so good and timely to the right needy people that you really trigger their interest.

The copy you select is crucial. One warning – don’t sell. Help or entertain or educate the people you can help, entertain or educate the most.

You have to engage them meaningfully and that is the only way this technique will work.

This means you have to select a truly remarkable piece of your writing and then you have to carefully select where you get it placed.

If you haven’t read my article on how to create these magic words, then you might want to read The Magic of Business sometime. Here’s a link to it: http://www.directcontactpr.com/free-articles/article.src?ID=105

Once you have some proven magic words, then you have to be strategic about where you place these little nuggets.

You can do this online using search engine tools. But you can’t just post them anywhere. You have to find the right places and opportunities.

What you need to do is think about targeting. What do people read, watch and listen to when they are in the right mood and are receptive to a suggestion?

I do this with prime media when we target media for news releases. We go through this same process only we target newspapers, magazines and trade press, news services and syndicates, radio and TV stations and shows, freelance writers, and the Internet media counterparts to all the above.

You do the same thing online with the different types of online publishing and search technologies that are available. Of course, you have to find them first.

This requires you to study, strategize and decide what to write and who to target very carefully.

I’ll illustrate with one simple example. Let’s say you write a poem about overcoming the challenges associated with breast cancer.

If you write a poem for breast cancer patients, then in front of breast cancer patients is where you want to be.

So think about your most important key words and select one:

For this example (I’m sending this to my breast cancer author clients of course), I’ll use the key words: breast cancer support.

You have to make use of the specialized search engines. So look for specialized search engines that will bring you to the right web sites and other online technologies and groups. What you are looking to make use of is:

Regular search engines: Web sites where cancer patients and their support networks hang out.

Photo search engines; the best photo sites about breast cancer

Audio search engines: the best audio sites about breast cancer

Video search engines: the best video sites about breast cancer

Blog search engines: Bloggers who write on breast cancer

Forum search engines: Forums that focus on and talk about breast cancer

Newsletter and ezine search engines: Health / cancer news letters and ezines about breast cancer

Association search engines: cancer and health associations about breast cancer

Podcast search engines: podcasts about dealing with breast cancer

Social networking search engines: sites from breast cancer

Yes there are specialized search engines that focus on just these technologies and you can access them and use them if you learn how.

Not every site you discover will meet your needs in terms of quality and visibility, but you can identify the ones that are significant and valuable to you.

For each valuable site you discover, you take a one to one approach, study it carefully, find the contact in-road or access point to the owner or editors, and craft a pitch designed to offer your content for publication or use the way they are accustomed to publishing it.

If you embark on a plan that allows you to hit five per day, then at the end of thirty days you’ll have contacted 150 online media. If even half these take you up on your pitch, then you’ll be on 75 sites.

And if you maintain that for a year, then you’ll be on 900 hand selected relevant sites by the end of the year.

That’s just for one key word: breast cancer support.

Now do some key word rotation switch to breast cancer information, help, guidance, counseling, mentoring, and so on.

When you have a key word NOUN, couple it with keyword VERBS or ACTIONS. I call this the SOAP method, where S = subject words O = Object words A = action words and P = process words

Create powerful keyword combinations by using SOAP.

For each subject word think of the synonyms and related key words.

Now create a key word chart and launch your search for the right web sites.

Then you systematically rotate words one at a time.

You can even do this geographically using the same key words and Google maps.

Go to Google maps and enter the words breast cancer support plus a location like “breast cancer support Atlanta, GA”

The map that results yields businesses, names, addresses, phone numbers and even web sites.

Now rotate to a new location and search again.

Now you may ask where to you find all the specialized search engines.

I have a patent on a search engine tool which I’ve made available for many months now that’s free. It’s still there for you to use:

Search Word Pro
http://www.searchwordpro.com/quick.src?Action=&T=130&04908effad

Search Word Pro operates like a channel changer for search engines.. Enter a search word and then you can send it to over 60 different search engines in all the categories described above and more.

BTW, you can easily use this to design and deploy your own blog tour. There are PR firms out there that will do the same blog tour for you and charge $10,000 for getting you on to 100 top blog sites. No kidding.

So if you want to make use of this and do it yourself, I’ve just shared with you how to do it.

Publicity, Blogs, and Book Marketing

A look at media coverage of blogs, bloggers, blogging and books

Great article all about a blogger turned book author in the Montreal Gazette.   Talk about a refreshing perspective.  This article takes off like a rocket even from the healine:  Blogger thumbs nose at athletes, media.  The article highlights the web site, gets into history, tells stories and reviews the book.  The blogger’s savvy and vision was revealed.  He saved the best for the book and didn’t put everything on his blog.   The review is excellent and makes one want to get the book.  Quite a cudo for the author. 

The Register Guard profiles local Eugene Oregon resident Joaquin Ramon Herrera, who is one of 51 citizen journalists posting blogs on MTV’s Choose or Lose Web site.  Herrera’s blog, the Unapologetic Mexican (www.the­unapologeticmexican.org) offers biting commentary and a “habañero of truth” on anything political or media.  He’s an author of a children’s book. 

USA Today look at soldier blogs in a dramatic article titled Five Years Later: The Iraqi War Goes Online.   If you want to jump in all the way:  Links to soldier blogs

Publicity, Marketing and Blogging

Best articles from around the media on blogging

Blogging in the news — insights about this week.  

Great article in the NY Times about the role blogging can play in both journalism and marketing by Saul Hansell titled “What I Learned as a Blogger for the NY Times

LA Times looks at blooger mentality and a South by Southwest interactive conference  Best quotes and ideas to remember:  Everyone’s a maker!   Promote Yourself!  Microcelebrity.  Talk about something interesting!

Business Week article canvasses blogs for best ideas on how to talk to your kids about NY Governor Spitzers scandalous actions

Publicity and Blogging March 7, 2008

Seeks to identify specific copywriting tactics and strategies to be used to get more publicity for blogs.

I’m beginning an in depth study of the media coverage of bloggers and blogging.  I will be seeking to identify characteristics, tactics, and the content that is needed to achieve coverage with prime media.  This is the first of what will be a weekly installment.  Lessons learned are at the end of the articles identified and discussed.

Stories identified this week: 

  • NBC TV News Channel 12 (March 6, 2008) Phoenix, Arizona feature about US Army Captain Brian Love blogging from Iraq and Afghanistan.  Online version links to verbatim print versions of posts on his blog. 
  • Knoxville News Sentinel (March 7, 2008) article Blogging gardeners connect with others talks aout a group of women gardeners who banded together to create Garden Rant in mid-2006.  “A blend of gossip, news, crusade and, yes, raw rant, it blows the cobwebs out of gardening’s mustier corners.”   

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