The question at hand, should I write blog posts on behalf of a company in order to raise money for charity
I’ve had a few companies reach out to me before about possibly blogging about their offerings in exchange for money, and I’ve always turned it down. Either the company wasn’t one that I actually was a client of, or the money wasn’t interesting.
That changed a few days ago when I was approached by a company that I do use, and the offer was more interesting than ones in the past. I’ve decided that IF I agree to do this, I’d donate the money I receive to charity and I’d be upfront with my readers that I’m doing it. And I won’t lie about the company, either.
I asked my Twitter friends and they came back with a pretty resounding, “do it”:
So I’m considering it based on that, but I thought I’d ask you guys, the readers of this blog, if you had any thoughts as well. I’m happy to discuss it in the comments on this post if anyone wants to chat about it. The gist is that I’d have to write one blog post a month over 5 months about this company, and 8 tweets a month. And again, a few charities I support will be the recipients of the money that I receive.
I’m also always one for testing something new, so if it doesn’t work out then I wouldn’t do it again. But I also don’t want to crap up my blog ;)
Thoughts?
Does the company get any say in what you write or the length/format of the post?
They are going to send me the post and then I can change it and tweak it as I see fit. I haven’t seen a sample yet, but that could be a deal-breaker if it’s too strict or long or something. But I expect I’d be able to re-write it in my voice and however I want..
You have distinct style of writing so it would be a bit jarring if this post were significantly different than that. One option is to have them write a blog post in the way that you do about the types of topics you write about. Have the promotion of their organization be secondary in a byline or your introduction of them. If you want to promote them directly, you could write a post of your experience of them, much like I did for Advice for Good about Kids In Need. https://adviceforgood.org/post/82526126567/meeting-the-need
Appreciate the advice! I’m still on the fence with this one…
[…] do it – so I decided to run a Twitter poll to see what my friends thought of the idea. The results were impressive in favor of doing it, which surprised me. At that point I was leaning heavily […]