Branding Yourself, Branding Whores, Paid Freelancers and Brand Ambassadors

Yes, I have decided to forgo the link bait discussion for a bit just because it seems everyone out there and their brother is giving this topic a shot.  So, I figure, the whole topic came up as a result of some issues dealing with Branding, whether it’s good or bad and advertising for companies or corporations.  This isn’t exactly a “how to” lesson, it’s more of a “what is” lesson.  So, sit back, relax and possibly grab a jug of water or cup of coffee, because in true Mom~E~Centric fashion, this is NOT a brief post.  I simply don’t do a lot of brief so, you have been warned.

Branding Yourself

Decide who you are, what you are going to make your online persona about and then run head first into the wind naked.  Yea, you read that right, no time for sitting around fumbling around with decisions.  For some of us, that’s and easy decision, we have a single point of interested and we know what we want to address.  For me, it wasn’t that easy  I started writing about preconception, moved on to marital issues and preconception together.  That took me to parenting and eventually back to my roots in education.  I have a B.S. in Education and a M.A. in Counseling.  So, obviously those were topics that I wanted to put my energy into as much as possible.

During this time, I realized a few other odds and ends would make money, like paid posts and such and I quickly learned that paid posts were easier to acquire (or the good paying ones if you will) if you had a topic that was creating a lot of traffic.

Enter TV Boyfriends which is now My TV Boyfriends, a blog for strictly celebrity gossip, Life in Reality, and finally I brought in one of the biggest celebrities of all time, Michelle Obama.

What does that mean about me in terms of branding?  It means, I have a logo, I have a media site and I have a name that associates me to all of my blogs regardless of the topic.   Mom~E~Centric is my personal blog and she is the author of everything I write.

Branding Whore

What makes someone a Branding Whore.  I know, that’s a pretty strong word but let’s face it, if you or someone you know are busily accepting products that you don’t know anything about, have no desire to know anything about and take them only in hopes of making yourself some money or worse, making yourself popular.  Then, you could easily be a branding whore.

Now, within this category of Branding Whores, we can also discuss where writing paid posts just for the sake of a link baiting or link juice and getting paid for it comes in.  This is simply different than a Branding Whore.

Paid Freelancer or Paid Blogger

And, under one condition, this is strictly a way of making money online.  That condition is this, writing posts and inserting links for someone who is in turn going to pay you is not part of the nature of being a Branding Whore.  As long as you follow the FTC Guidelines, disclose that you are writing  paid posts and you do not make claims about the product that you personally haven’t experienced, then consider yourself a paid freelance writer or paid posts writer.  Period.  Not a branding whore until you start to make claims that are either untrue or that you have not experienced yourself.  So, walk that fine line, and you are nothing more than a paid blogger.  And that my friends is nothing to be ashamed of.  If you are putting food on your table, clothes on your family, or going on vacations with the money you have earned legitimately, then do not allow others to criticize you or make you feel inferior.  After all, someone’s going to do the advertising for these companies.  Is it going to be your local newspaper, commercials on TV, other bloggers or is it going to be you?  No shame here!  Period

Branding Ambassador

I consider myself a Brand Ambassador and I am going to speak here on personal experience.  I am not one of the A-list Bloggers out there getting offers from every large company and corporation out there.  I’ve checked, approximately 92% of the items that you see me write about here or any of my other sites, either come to me by way of me asking for them or a public relations company that I have worked for before knowing me and the products I like and offering those to me.

I have a couple of examples of nearly every type of opportunity that I can think of that has come my way in recent months.  Yes, I’ll miss some but it isn’t intentional, it’s purely a matter of working through this.

First of all, yes, I was part of the Social Media Moms Celebrate Disney.   Now, think about this, I’ve collected Mickey Mouse items for over 20 years.  I was married in Disney World and naturally honeymooned there as well.  For me to accept sponsorship to that conference was not about me just hopping on the Disney train because the offer was there.  Make sense?

I am a huge education advocate and one of the items that I had at the conference for people came to me via another person who is interested in child education and safety.  My Precious Kids offered temporary arm bands for children so that the kids had identification on them in case they somehow were separated from their parents.

I proposed to a car manufacturer that I would be willing to help promote them on this trip in exchange for some assistance.  My automobile would have been fine for the trip but it is small.  The first company, which is and always will be one of my husband’s favorites wasn’t able to help me.  So, I moved on to my favorite.  See a pattern here, again this wasn’t solely about me.  I was able to reach someone who helped us and we rode in a much more comfortable fashion than we would have in our own cars.

Now, outside of that trip, let me discuss a couple of other simple issues where I DO BRAND advertising but not because I can but because I want to.

For instance, I am an avid watcher of The View I watched years ago prior to the Rosie days and quit when she came aboard.  Once Rosie left and Whoopi joined, I began trying to watch it but we owned a daycare so it wasn’t exactly appropriate material for there.  So, I would DVR the shows and enjoy them at night after my kids were in bed.  Even after we sold the daycare, I couldn’t watch the show comfortably with my kids in earshot and often missed some of the best conversations.  So, I returned to DVR’ing the show and watching after the kids were in bed.

So, obviously when the opportunity arose for me to be a The View Ambassador, I thought I made a perfect candidate.  The story regarding the Tropicana Ambassadorship is much the same, my kids love the stuff, we buy it anyway, so why not.  With that in mind, I haven’t watched General Hospital in 25 years, why would I even apply to be an Ambassador to that show?  I didn’t, end of sentence.

Moving right along, many food products, yogurt in particular have come my way in the last few months and since I haven’t been released to chew yet, it only made sense to take advantage of this opportunities.  Don’t you think?

And, my last example goes back to my Upside Down Christmas Tree.  Several years ago we gated off our Christmas Tree so that our sweet adorable children would not dismantle and destroy ever Mickey Mouse ornament I owned.  So, when I saw that upside down Christmas tree’s were available, I thought, wow that would have been a neat thing to have.

And, this past Christmas, I had that chance.  I was given the opportunity to get an upside down tree, use it for 30 days and then send it back.  Maybe that sounds ridiculous to you but, the thing is this, no one, not even me wants to go digging in our garage every winter.  And, our ornaments were pretty much close, so we didn’t have to dig into the critters and such to retrieve them.  And, get it, use it, box it up, send it back and they paid all the shipping sounded like one of the best ideas I had ever heard.

And, with that, I made a pitch and it was accepted.  Read that, I made a pitch, not they contacted me and suggested I take something I knew nothing about or had no desire to know anything about.  This was a grand plan and we loved it.

What did it accomplish?  Well besides the critters in my garage not being freed for the winter, I realized that, I liked the upside down tree but that at four feet, if I buy one, I want one for all four corners of my family room.  Or, I want one really big one.

That my friends was not something that even resembled what I would refer to as a Brand ‘HO.  That was me doing business with a company who had a product I had wanted to try for a few years before investing any money in purchasing and it had all the added conveniences that you could imagine.

Think about that!

I said that was my last example but here’s another one, just for giggles.  My husband and I are big on massages.  He works extremely hard and we’ve often used our anniversary or birthday as a chance to purchase a massage for one another or even just to go get pedicures together.  So, when I received the opportunity to get a massage and participate in Spa Madness Week (which you will be hearing more about), I took it.  And really, let’s be honest.  If you are thinking of purchasing someone a massage for their birthday, anniversary or any other surprise holiday, and you get the chance to get them this for free in exchange for telling folks about it, writing about it and more, why would you do it any other way?

So, now, take a look around you.  When you start to judge people and try to make judgmental remarks about the person being a “brand ambassador for everyone”, dig a little deeper, see what’s really going on, get to know the person.  Honestly, if they live in Africa (or hey, South Florida even) and you see where they are promoting and describing how great their snow boots are, at least check to see if they’ve been on vacation lately.  If not, then maybe and I do say maybe, but maybe it’s safe to say they are branding themselves about a product they have no real knowledge of.  Or, perhaps someone in your feed reader is constantly discussing their new bikini and how they wear it every day and it holds up well to the sunshine and chlorine water, even though they live in Alaska…..then just possibly something is amiss……..

But then remember, read the article well, it may simply be a paid advertisement, just like the ones from many years ago when companies made their presence known in the local newspaper, or on television, like a commercial during the Super Bowl.

The most important thing to remember is, things aren’t always like they seem on the cover and if you are going to poke your nose into someone’s business, it might be a good idea to make sure you poke far enough into their business that you get the truth, not just some superficial bullsh!t!

Now, with all that off my chest, I’m really going to get to link baiting soon, especially since I prefaced here with a great deal of reasons why paid link baiting is not necessarily bad.  And, heck, we will talk about why paid link baiting can be good as well as simple link baiting for the sake of helping people find other people who have similar interest.  Don’t miss out!