It seemed like a legit opportunity at first and I rolled out the red carpet with my fancy pitch to them, but I soon found out that they were about as shady as any company gets when it comes to internet promotion.
After sending out my initial introduction & pitch, this is the response that I received back from them:
"So glad to hear from you!
How about $10 for a review and this kind of things?
Daisy"
Rookie Mistake #4: Working With Companies That Don't Live In Your Country
Okay so, first of all, I almost never work with companies that start off their communications with badly worded English. I understand that companies overseas are looking to make a buck just like companies here in the US, but there are two big problems that I always run into whenever working with foreign companies.The first is that if this is truly a shady company and your readers take YOUR advice and buy from them, what are you going to do when your loyal fans get upset that you've misled them? It's not like you can call up the Better Business Bureau!!
And number two, every overseas company I've worked with doesn't really give a nut about Google's webmaster rules. Let me repeat: They do not care if you get thrown under the bus and penalized by Google, because Google is most likely not their country's number one search engine. YOU (the blogger) NEED to care though, because if you don't, your site stats are going to take a nosedive and you aren't going to be able to figure out why until you get that nasty email from Google letting you know that you've broken some of their cardinal rules.
Rookie Mistake #5: Working For Peanuts. (Or Less Than Peanuts.)
Additionally, $10!? I could find a factory job through a temp agency by tomorrow that would pay me $10 (or more) to work for an hour. How long does it take you (on average) to review something? Probably more than an hour if you're doing a good job. Then you have to add in time spent writing. And promoting. What are we up to now? Maybe three hours? $10 is too low for a review post. Way too low.At the time I wasn't thrilled about doing a review for such a low amount, but one of my teammates was willing to do it for the ten buckeroos. So I responded:
"Hi Daisy,
I spoke with one of my team members and he is willing to do the review for $10. Payment can be made at [some email address] via [some payment company]. Do you have a particular time-frame that you are hoping to launch this post? Knowing when you would like it to launch will assist me in adding it to our publishing schedule.
Also, please send me the links to your various social media platforms and we will encourage our readers to follow your company.
Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions!"
"Daisy" (more than likely not his/her real name) responded quickly with the following:
"Thanks a lot!
Please review our site and post it with the following anchor text and link
[First Link]
[Another Link]
[Yet Another Link]
[What the goose? ANOTHER link?]
Make sure the links should be follow
it will be better if you can share it to you social media
with this link [some randomly insisted upon link]
For example: Edit your favorite photo with awesome photo effects at [randomly insisted upon link here] .It is free online photo editor. The most amazing way to make your pics bright and vivid!
Then,please send the paypal invoice ($10) to the following
PayPal after you finish all.
Notice: please add the url of your website in the paypal invoice message.
My PayPal Email: [some probably invalid email address that didn't even match the sender's name]
Wish you can finish it before Sunday
Daisy"
Holy mother of terrible pitches. This one is the junk that failed blogs are made of. I almost don't even know where to begin!
Rookie Mistake #6: Posting Too Many "Paid" Links
Technically, anytime you write for a company and you get paid, or get a review item, or get a service in exchange... any links that are within the post are considered "paid for". Your readers should know that the post was sponsored because the FTC requires disclosure from bloggers anytime there is compensation for our writing. Even if you didn't disclose (because maybe you're brand new to it and this is the first you're hearing about that disclosure thing...) your readers aren't stupid. They are going to know that you are writing about a company because you're being paid to. They don't want to see an article filled with links. I try to stick to one link to a company's site per-post, not just because my readers don't want to be flooded with links, but because Google frowns on too many links... ESPECIALLY when all those links are going to the same place! Don't flood your content with outbound links that are all to the same site; readers hate it, and Google does too.Rookie Mistake #7: Allowing "Paid" Follow Links on Your Site
WHOA. Hold up. Anytime, and I mean anytime you see someone ask for follow links, that is the time you need to back away from a deal with a company. Google's webmaster rules considers this to be the same as a link-scheme, and they will not hesistate to penalize YOU for it. The penalization can roll anywhere from being listed dead last in search results to being removed from Google search results altogether. Yep. They can do that. Do not, and I mean do not post links that are "follow" links if you have been paid for them. I would advise to not post follow links at all unless you really and truly love a site SO much that you want to give away some of your Google ranking to them, because that's pretty much what you're doing every time you post a link without the "rel=nofollow" attached.Rookie Mistake #8: Allowing the Company to Dictate Your Posts
It's one thing to ask you to use a certain hashtag, but you have to draw the line at including specific wording. First of all, it sounds like an ad. If you want your readers to trust you, you're gonna have to appeal to them on a human level and skip the Paid-For-Commercial vibe. You also don't want to find out that whatever you're reviewing doesn't live up to the hype, but get into an argument with the company if you fail to post their verbatim advertorial. Don't be a puppet. It's your site, it's your reputation.Rookie Mistake #9: Getting Paid AFTER You Post
Um, no. Just no. Unless you are working with a HIGHLY reputable blogger campaign site (like Influencer Central, IZEA, TapInfluence, etc...) there is no way in ham that you should be getting paid after you post something up. For starts, who is to say that the person you are conversing with has any intention of paying you in the first place? By the time you figure out it's a scam, you've already lost the game. You've already posted that verbatim tidbit in social media and your readers have already seen the info. Even if you take it all down, the damage has been done and the links have been clicked. Additionally, almost 100% of the time that bloggers agree to post-payment from questionable companies, the person that they are working with will tell them that they aren't eligible to receive the payment because they did one thing wrong or another. This is a smucky deal all around.By this time I was more than annoyed, so I wrote back this little number:
"I am sorry Daisy, but [a reference to my original post to her] we cannot and do not support follow links since that is against Google's Webmaster rules and we are not willing to risk our website's reputation over $10.
Thank you for your interest, but we do not work with companies who cannot follow along with these rules, and we will not be doing this review for your company.
Good luck in your endeavor,"
There is oh-so-much-more that I wanted to say, but I chose to keep it classy. I didn't hear back from "Daisy", and I'm not surprised. I DID however, hear back from the blogger service that sent out the original info, and surprise-surprise: they were warning bloggers to AVOID working with Fotor at all costs! As for me, I'd warn consumers away from them as well. If they were this shady with the people that were supposed to promote them... how do you think they'll treat the people they're taking money from?
Have you ever worked with a company that
tried to scam you like Fotor tried to with me?
Chat with me in the comments below, I love hearing from my readers!
