It’s a concession.

(If this is your first time here, thanks for coming. But before you read this post, read The Boogie Man Post and An Alternative to Brogan-Style Blogging. Otherwise this isn’t going to make sense.)

Maybe I think too much. Or maybe not enough. But whatever the case, I’ve come to a realization that contradicts almost everything I’ve been espousing over the past couple of weeks, both on this blog and in other conversations.

First, before I begin, I want to say that a handful of people have recommended that I apologize to Chris Brogan for some of the things I said about his business practices. Well, I’m not going to do that. I’m not sorry that I said what I did. I doubt I hurt Chris’s feelings; I doubt very much that I had any kind of demonstrable impact on his ability to generate income. Further, had I not said what I did, and had I not had the ensuing conversations with people who feel passionately about the issue, I wouldn’t have come to this revelation — and it’s a game changer.

Now, all of that said, I was wrong.

Chris is Paid to Think

Here’s what I’ve realized. It’s not possible to subsist on ideas alone. Philosophers think a lot, and the way they make their living is by publishing books and teaching. But a philosopher is also in business for himself. The money he makes off of his books goes to a variety of expenses that allow him to continue thinking full time. That’s what he loves to do; the market says what he does has value; he therefore has every right to continue to monetize his ideas. It makes good business sense. Moreover, his readers expect him to make money off the deal. And because they like his stuff, they support him financially whenever they can.

Chris Brogan is a marketing philosopher, in a sense. The difference between Chris and the traditional philosopher is that Chris has found a way to turn the content he gives away for free into a revenue generator. (It’s really quite brilliant — he makes money whether he charges for content or gives it away.)

I said before that this isn’t right. But it is.

I want Chris Brogan to keep giving away content for free. Heck, I want him to keep publishing books. And if he was to accept the way of thinking I’ve been espousing for the past couple of weeks, he’d have to go get himself a 9-5 to support his thought leadership habit. And that would make him far less prolific.

The more money that Chris makes, the more time he can take to sit on his butt and think. And when he sits on his butt and thinks for an extended period of time, the results are extraordinary.

Some Ideas are Better than Others

See, I was operating under the theory that anyone can do what Chris does. But over the past couple of weeks I’ve gone back and re-read some of his content. And I’m here to tell you that a person who can find inspiration so readily is in extremely rare supply. I would be doing a great disservice not only to Brogan, but to my fellow marketers if I were to encourage him to give up a revenue source that enabled him to spend more time reveling in that inspiration and less time working. (Even if the revenue stream was relatively small.)

Before you say it: No, I’m not being facetious. I still think that Chris could do without the posts dedicated exclusively to promoting an affiliate relationship. But I’m not going to begrudge him those posts anymore. I’m buying what Chris is (figuratively) selling and for the sake of the profession, I hope that others continue to (literally) buy in, too.

Does this mean that I’ll be opening MattShawBlog.com up to affiliate sponsors? No, probably not. It’s still not my cup of chowder. But I’m not going to rule it out for any of my other endeavors. As with everything, the strategy depends on the goals.

Next Round’s on Me

Thanks to everyone who has put their time and effort into contributing to this discussion. I know a lot of you feel passionately one way or another about it, so of course the topic will always be open for discussion. A special thanks to Chris Brogan for tolerating criticism so well. Chris, if I run into you at the Inbound Marketing Summit, I’d like to buy you a beer. (There will be beer, won’t there?)

Photo credit: robleto

P.S. I’m not going to use Chris as an example anymore — I think I’ve talked this example to death, and I’m sure Chris is sick of having to come here to defend himself. If I’m being perfectly objective, I’ve already taken up too much of his time. (Time he should be spending sitting on his butt and thinking.) If we do talk about this again, I’ll be sure to pick on someone else.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about the pitfalls of affiliate marketing and big-picture alternatives to affiliate advertising on marketing blogs. I’ve had some incredible conversations about it with people like Chris Brogan, Stanford Smith, Nanci Murdock and Marjorie Clayman on this blog, and you can see them in the comments sections of the most recent posts on this blog.

But I wanted to tell you about some of the other conversations I’ve had with marketers you might never have heard of. These are some of my connections on LinkedIn, who responded to a very simple question: In general, do you trust the opinions of marketing bloggers who use affiliate advertising?

The answers ranged from very simple…

“A blogger who uses affiliate advertising is only using the blog as a way to make money. Skip it and move on.”

- Dave Maskin, www.WireNames.com

“I consider the source.”

- Christine Hueber, www.ChristineHueber.com

…to more complex…

“The fact is that among people that blog, the amount of knowledge on a subject varies widely, regardless of whether they blog for money or for fun. The other variables are honesty and integrity. If a blogger has knowledge, honesty and integrity, I will trust them.”

- Hector Bravo, Earth Science Systems LLC

…but the simple fact of the matter is that people are very divided on the issue.

As Hector points out, there are a lot of variables to trust, and affiliate marketing may have little to do with how a person determines trustworthiness. This thought is echoed by some of his peers:

“No one has an issue with a person that puts a ton of hours into a blog site getting a little back. If you are delivering value to your readers they, generally, won’t have any problem continuing to support you. If it comes to [sic] often or too heavy handed, they will flee.”

-Noel Larson, Definition Branding & Marketing

To some, this heavy-handedness is relatively commonplace:

“I trust [marketing bloggers who post affiliate ads] about as much as I trust magazines where a full page ad for a product is on the page adjacent to a product review of that product. The issue of ‘journalistic integrity’ has been alive and well since the birth of advertising and the blogosphere is really blurring the lines.

…

“It’s a relevant question as there is a very popular blogger right now who is waaay overdoing the affiliate links in my opinion (on some posts they are more prominent than his content). The fact that he is also extremely defensive about his affiliate links tells me they don’t sit right with him either, but he seems to keep adding them.”

- Robert Cooper, PlusROI Online Marketing Inc.

Now, this isn’t to say that bloggers shouldn’t use affiliate marketing tactics. In some cases, the practice is acceptable. The key issue seems to be disclosure:

“That said, when there is full disclosure and it’s a product that the blogger uses themselves I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

- Robert Cooper

“As Robert (Cooper) has mentioned, you need to review the site as a whole. Pretty much as you would look at a bricks and mortar shop and decide, based on that, whether it’s somewhere you’d feel comfortable going into to shop.

“There should be a disclosure page that states the affiliate relationships the blogger has, and how they deal with requests from product owners/manufacturers to review their products.

“It should also state the blogger’s own practices in their reviews – i.e. whether or not they use the product and, if not, then why.

“In addition, many professional bloggers (me included) re-state an affiliate relationship (if it exists) in the first few paragraphs of any product they review.”

- Martin Malden, Web Services Consultant

In fact, some marketers even think that affiliate relationships are necessary to sustain thought leadership:

“Great bloggers always produce quality articles / product reviews and are very upfront about affiliation. I have no problem with them being paid for the work they put in their post, it is in fact the only sustainable way to get quality content in blogs.” (Emphasis added. -ed.)

- Christophe Primault, AppDoubler

(It’s worth noting that I vehemently disagree with Christophe here. I think I’m doing a pretty good job of sustaining quality content without affiliate relationships. But maybe that’s just hubris. You decide.)

So what’s the take-away here? I suppose if we can take anything away, it’s this: affiliate marketing isn’t inherently evil. Not many people will trust you less for using your blog to generate affiliate income, as long as you are open and honest about your relationship. The ethics of posting affiliate links trumps the ethics of establishing an affiliate relationship (as backwards as that sounds).

In other words, lots of people disagree with me. And that’s great! It means we can continue the conversation.

Are you put off by marketing bloggers who use affiliate links? Give us your thoughts by jotting a quick line in the comments section below.

Photo credit: dev null