Thinking more on promotion

Have been looking around at things on the web more curious about how people are trying to make money, where lots seems to do with promoting things. And have talked about promotion here before, where am now pushing the labeling system, as most such posts should have "promotion" as a label at the bottom.

One thing that got to me recently while watching something on YouTube which was thankfully honest where vlogger said was being paid for by a promotional partner was it seemed nonetheless kind of awkward. And thought to myself, what if you could tell a story after about a product instead, where it wasn't so much a product review either, but just a personal story of that product, where it was stated upfront that the product supplier reviewed and approved of the story?

And here will note I have no paid endorsements of any kind and at this time, have chosen total transparency with a commercially focused blog I call Seriously Commercial having endorsement info on a page. That idea being if someone sees something I post or tweet or whatever and wonder if am being paid for it, they can just check that link.

So why this idea then that someone would tell a story after of a product, with it known the endorsement was business partner approved?

To me allows you to encapsulate, with total transparency, lowers trust needed, and frees you up otherwise to just be yourself without strings attached.

For instance, let's say someone wanted me to endorse a product and I did video. I might say, ok, let's see, and video receiving product in the mail. Step through using it, and even chat about my process. Edit some video, send back to company to see if they liked, and then upload. Viewers could choose to watch or not, but otherwise they could be comforted in knowing that my other content was completely free of such things, even if products got mentioned. Then it would just be natural flow.

So then lots would be about trust of that person as well, as to whether being honest or not about opinions. Like what if receive something, decide it is crappy, and just send it back? Viewers would never know. But if instead someone just fudges for the money? I think over time viewers would figure out.

Oh yeah, otherwise might already have a story but guess more complicated there as how to set up the business arrangement then? Sitting here pondering nothing comes to mind, so moving on.

What would my dream list of products be? Will not say. Am just musing here and I think it helps the purity of my process. Have managed to avoid such things for obvious reasons up to now. But am thinking more both about how to use the web to make money, and how best to do so without feeling icky, which for me is very particular to me, as to what does or not.


James Harris