What’s Your Influence Worth?

There was a New York Times article a week or so ago profiling a guy who made $300 in a hour by tweeting about M&Ms.  Since I waited to write this, I can’t find the article, but he has was averaging $3,000 a week doing promotions like this.

So is it wrong to get paid to tweet?  This is an interesting question for me right now because my company is developing Trust Engagements that assist influencers, advertisers, publishers and users with new ways to do do commerce online.

Our models are based on the community driving the engagements and are very different than a guy getting paid to broadcast an ad for candy, but his case highlights the ‘sell out’ factor that is going on.

What these people aren’t getting is that your reputation is your brand and it’s your future online and in life.  If getting paid $100 to hype a product seems worth tearing down any trust and respect you’ve built with your Twitter followers or blog readers, then maybe you deserve to lose what you’ve built.

Social media is powerful because of how easily and quickly it connects tribes of people with similar passions.  When you exploit that to pimp a product inauthentically you’re pouring sugar into your gas tank.

Blogger or Pimp?

Where I land with the M&M pimp is that if he was going to write about M&Ms anyway and he loves them the way I love Glacier Ice Cream (who didn’t pay me to write that,) then it’s an integrous transaction for him to make a little money.  If his honest passion was the driving force for the content he created then a little affiliate commission makes sense.

But if he’s like some bloggers I’ve heard and read about who are accepting every corporate offer to pimp any product they’re asked to pimp, then they’ve shifted from blogger to pimp. They’ll lose the cache they built up to be able to promote things, and we all know that it’s hard out here for a pimp.

I guess what gets me about this new phenomenon is that I’m continually baffled by the lack of common sense people use in life and with social media.  If you wouldn’t want it done to you, then don’t do it.  If your favorite blogger suddenly started hyping products in most of her posts would you feel thrilled or betrayed?

There are bloggers out there like Jo White and Aimee Giese who mention products they honestly believe in along with transparent disclaimers and insightful information.

But they’re not the norm.  Jo and Aimee are women with very high integrity and strong opinions and excellent writing skills – a lethal combination for doing the right thing.  They are two people to watch to see how to balance integrity with connecting people to great resources which may come with perks for yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with getting a little spiff along with full editorial control over reviewing something.  I’ve done it on this blog for Cirque Du Soliel because I love what they offer the public and I’m inspired by how they do business.

Where do you feel the line can be, or is, crossed in the emerging world of personal social media influence merging with commerce?