I won’t be another ‘me too’ who says ‘great post.’ Instead let me just say it’s refreshing to read an article that doesn’t mince words about our right to earn a fair profit from the intellectual property we create.

Social media doesn’t always mean free. And that’s not evil..

Cheers!

However as countless examples are playing themselves out in the popular press a consistent theme among them is that of the bridging of public and private space. They are becoming one, and this is creating problems as the distinctions are becoming clouded.

Social Media is personal. Think about your Facebook account (if you have), think about the level of information a typical user might share, and then think back over history of a similar commercial platform that has provided business with an opportunity to have acccess to that data (if Facebook did a subscription based model “behaviour tracking ads free” what would the takeup be?). Anwer: There’s not been one. That means that people in this sphere, Chris et al, need to tread carefully and tranparentely.

We’ve seen a bit of a privacy vacuum take place in the last few years. I can still remember when people were concerned about banking online, and giving their credit card details. While the latter is still a concern, what we have seen is an embracing of Tech which has not been complimented by an explanation of what might be the cost of embracing it or the risks involved for the consumer.

That I think is what many of the most significant negative press cases in Social Media amount to, people upset or realizing that the promise is not matched by the trust.

Key message: tread carefully and clearly in the SM space and you’ll be fine.

Chris: It’s funny how people’s attitudes toward you chance once you “make it” and “become successful” and start “earning a living”. That’s always when the attacks come. Funny thing. Thanks for dropping by.

Daniel:

I just worry as more and more people try to monetize social media, the landscape will get more corporate, spammier, and the content will suffer.

You mean like it has with blogs? :) Money pretty much ruins everything, doesn’t it? I hope it doesn’t ruin the content being produced in social media. I don’t think that it will. I think as consumers of it we’ll just have to become more discerning with who we trust. But, I suppose that’s life.

Joe: Can I applaud that comment? Because I’d like to. Totally, totally agree. :)

Andrew: I think that last point is what people forget. It’s not like the Brian Clarks of the world woke up with these amazing personal brands. No. They spent time building them. There’s a huge investment there that people don’t always realize. So yeah, he’s going to use the connections he’s built to support himself. He’d be crazy not to. Unless, as you mentioned, you’d like to be this generation’s version of the starving writer. Personally, I’d rather be able to eat.

Andromeda Edison: Thanks for speaking up. :)

Yawn: Thanks for the comment. I agree that bloggers “flogging themselves to the highest bidder” are pretty much douchebags. They’re going to lose trust and, eventually, their spot in the food chain. But that’s now what Chris, what Heather Armstrong, what Brian Clark are doing. There’s integrity there and I think it’s unfair that they get chastised for using what they’ve got. Social media is about money. They don’t need anyone’s permission to monetize themselves.

At the end of the day come on, you and I know what’s right and wrong, the difference is in those that choose to go ahead and do the wrong, and those that don’t.

Extracted from
[http://dadomatic.com/sponsored-post-kmart-holiday-shopping-dad-style/]

“This post is a sponsored post on behalf of Kmart via Izea. The opinions are mine.”

Which part? It’s really pretty damned straightforward, and if any group of people should be aware of how to declare their intentions it would in Social Media (which based on my reading attracts very bright minds) , don’t treat your audience like idiots. Declare it clearly and they WILL UNDERSTAND and respect you more.

Not having a poke at Chris, it could have been anyone, but as usual the person with the highest visibility is the person most likely to get negative press. Can you do a post on blog clans or identifying a blog clan (a la thesis for example :) )

Trust is such a big thing on the Internet and we’re being challenged by it too.

I don’t agree either that anything is owed to anyone because they are a) a nice guy, or b) because of a fair quid-pro-quo a tradeoff for investment and time they have given to writing and running a free blog. If you can’t work out how to monetize a blog ethically then you should have thought about that first….or don’t think about it and get this kind of press.

It’s a good discussion piece, I’m glad you raised the point.

This is my first visit to your blog, and I intend to keep visiting for more.

I completely agree with the fact that if one wants to monetize, they should, and it’s completely fine.

Even Jon Henshaw has made a valid point.

I started out with absolutely no intention of doing ads on my site, but only later realized, it made sense.

Cheers!

Lisa, the people who approach all of this as if it should be based on 100% altruism are not only anal retentive weenies, they also haven’t experienced success yet. I started a family education/resource website in 1996 and would either ignore or reply with a snarky remark to anyone who wanted to advertise on the site. I was one of those anal retentive weenies back then.

But then the site took off, started kicking butt in the SERPs, was getting organic inbound links like crazy, and when I tested AdSense on it, the CTR and income went through the roof. That quickly changed my spirit of altruism to “it’s time to make some money!” So much so, that I sold that site a few years ago and used the money for the down payment on my home.

Personally, I don’t have any problem with Chris Brogan. He has experiences and knowledge to share, and if enough people are willing to pay him for that, then so be it. He’s a super nice and smart guy, and I think he deserves his current success as much as the next person in his position.

I fear some people have confused abuse of authority with use of networks. If you publish an info site, and spam it to death, that’s abuse. Worse if it’s a .org with a hook that makes consumers think it’s non-profit (in the real sense, not the US IRS code sense). Or perhaps if you started blogging by putting yourself up on a pedestal saying “I’m a blogger because information needs to be free, power to the people/death to corporate greed” then yeah, you’re a sell out when you accept Wal-Mart pop-unders. You stand up and say “SEO is BS” and then execute an SEO play, or call yourself “open source” and then with hold the best bits for paying clients, calling it part of a “premium support package”. in short, if you trick your followers or otherwise “cash in on your friends”, you suck.

But entertainers charging admission to their shows? That’s not abuse.. that’s how bills get paid.

When i hear BS like “blogging purist” I think “amateur”. Because honestly if you aren’t leveraging all the hours and words that you put into this whole thing called then internet to make a few dollars, then you are either independently wealthy (which is fine) or you are a homeless person at a wireless cafe (which is sad).