If you read lots of blogs, you likely have come across several posts that discusses selling blog advertising or exchanging space for such things as iPods. The most recent and the best, I think, is Mack Collier's post at The Viral Garden entitled Blog Monetization; How Do We ALL Win?


Mack is a friend, a smart blogger and a big-hearted soul. I admire him in many ways. But on this subject we disagree. Inherent in Mack's title question is the idea that if we bloggers make money on our blogs, we should find ways to share it with our readers. I love you Mack, but either I don't get it or you are just wrong on this one. Here's my view, and then let's get all of yours.
Most of us in the MarketingProfs community, including the writers, are marketers, designers, PR types, advertising specialists, entrepreneurs and business managers or executives. We do what we do for two reasons: 1) we love our work (I hope) and 2) we need to make a living.
To that end, our blogs, including this one, are designed to do several things: 1) to share ideas and information freely, 2) to provide reader value, 3) to build our brands and our businesses, and for some of us, 4) to provide additional income. I believe these reasons are ethical, values-based and smart business.
Mack asks in his post: How can we share our revenues to provide readers with value? How can we share the profits? (It is a question not a diatribe on what we should do.)
I believe we provide value in our words, wisdom, and sharing. As an author, when someone buys my book, I am appreciative, and I am confident they will receive value for their purchase price. It is a basic business principal: You give me something, usually money, and in return I provide value in the form of a product or service.
As a marketer, one of the services you give me money for is advertising. Not on my blog, because I don't sell space, but where I can best get your ads placed that will reach your target audience and grow your business. Your value is in the advertising's effectiveness.
The same is true for blogs. If MarketingProfs sells advertising here at the Daily Fix, they are not compelled to share that revenue with us. Nor is any other blog. You receive value in the posts and in the contents of the advertising, as well, if the product, service or idea is something you want or need. If you don't receive value in the posts, you won't return.
In conclusion, if we monetize our blogs, I believe we insult our readers by sharing that revenue with them and cause harm to the basic business principal of fair exchange. If we share our revenue, it is bad business and doing so implies that our posts are crap and offer no value in and of themselves. It's akin to buying a washing machine, sharing in the sales person's commision, and then getting home to discover the washing machince sucks.
So there you have it. The value is in the words. Bloggers keep any revenues they make because they earned them. Now, let me have it. Maybe in our conversation and comments we can find a way to discontinue this conversation (or maybe not). Is the value in the posts or should we be sharing whatever monetization of our blogs exists?