Earlier this week I updated my blog with a new sponsored post for Shell. I was really encouraged with the results it brought. Close to 1,000 shares on its own and really great quality comments from you guys sharing your stories not counting the comments or stories shared on other social media platforms.
Sponsored posts are tricky. Nobody wants to write a sponsored post that doesn’t get any engagement or anyone reading it or responding to it. That sucks but it’s not easy writing good ones either. Here’s what I’ve learned and my best practices so far:
1) Don’t bother masking an ad as not an ad
The reason for this is far beyond ethics. The truth is that we’re all so used to be being pushed with ads we know an ad when we see one. When James Bond drives an Aston Martin, we know it’s not because he happens to drive an Aston Martin. We know that it’s because the studio was paid to have him drive one.
Heck we’re so conscious of ads that even when something isn’t an ad, we think it’s an ad. Like my meme proposal years back. I remember some people saying that it’s a viral ad campaign from the restaurant or from the production house that produced the video when it really wasn’t.
It was genuinely a wedding proposal that I paid for and was not sponsored to do at all.
So don’t bother hiding an ad. Say it is outright or somewhere in your article or whatever way that suits you. Because your readers know better.
2) Write about products that only you care about or have used before
Bloggers or influencers have the power to influence people. This power is bestowed upon your readers by the trust they have in you. Abuse that trust and it’s gone. Lie to them and it’s gone.
So take this power seriously. Try a product before you write about it and only write about it if you’re really convinced it’s worth recommending. If it’s not then don’t. No pressure.
I used to use an iPhone and then I was sponsored by Sony last year which I really loved and since then I’ve had other smartphone companies sponsor me phones but I didn’t want to write about it because I didn’t think they were great phones.
Credibility is the most important thing we have to guard. It takes a long time to build and just one action to destroy.
3) Provide some value to your readers
Don’t ever view a sponsored post as an ad and that’s it. The instant you do that is the instant you turn your mind off about how to engage your readers. Posting pictures of yourself and a product isn’t good enough.
Provide some value to your readers who take the effort to read your blog or a sponsored article. Tell them something interesting they may not already know, or make them laugh, or give them a perspective that they never had. Or heck give them a chance to be a part of your campaign by giving something away even.
Of course this particular point is easier said than done. because many clients want to have some say on how their products is covered. There are however great clients who are really accepting of these things. For example my previous sponsored post about Shell. The article was part of a national campaign that promoted Shell’s initiatives to improve their stations all over Malaysia. I sat down for a while and thought about how I could provide value and then I realized.
Shell was a brand that many of us grew up with. We used Shell almost like a family tradition and perhaps tracing back the history of Shell might reveal some interesting facts (like how Shell used to sell Sea shells instead of oil). I spent about an hour or two Googling Shell and reading about its history. Plucked the interesting facts out and then started writing my sponsored post.
It involved more work than just writing a straightforward sponsored post. Neither do I get paid more for putting more effort into it. Why I did it though was because to add more value to my readers and fortunately some of you guys (not necessarily all) responded to it well. If more people respond to it well and comment, share it or discuss it then it’s better for the client and the brand and everyone wins. The only thing it took was a bit more of my time and effort. It also really helped that the clients at Shell and their agency were really forward thinking and understood how these things work.
I believe that in our world of sponsored/branded content, we gotta constantly up our game on how we can do better. Beyond taking pictures with products, beyond listicles and beyond hard selling stuff. It’s a hard thing to do because people change. Listicles for example used to be really popular until they got overdone.
This however is what makes it interesting. That we have to constantly find new ways to engage the people who follow us with the brands who want to work with us.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space