I want to follow up on yesterday’s post about SocialSpark 2.0 and the concerns about direct publishing. I recognize that this is a major change and with all change comes concern, but I would like step back for a moment so everyone can evaluate this change in context.
The Big Picture
Social Media Apps Are Interconnected
Your Flickr is tied to Facebook. Your Facebook is tied to Foursquare. Your Sponsored Tweets is tied to Twitter. Publishing between social applications is commonplace. We aren’t asking you to do anything that most of you aren’t already doing with other applications. We are just giving you a way to earn money too : )
Your Trust is at Stake
We recognize that by authorizing SocialSpark to publish to your blog you have granted us access to a personal and valuable asset. We take that trust very seriously and recognize you can revoke that trust at any time. We will never publish anything that you have not personally written and approved. We know that doing so would destroy our relationship with you and that is the last thing we want.
An Easy Work Around
If you have any concern about providing us with access to your blog we suggest that you create a new user account just for us. You can always delete that account and we will no longer have access to your blog. If you are on Blogger we use OAuth to connect to your blog. At any time you can revoke access with the click on a button.
Why We Are Doing This
FTC Compliance
The FTC Guidelines that went in to effect last year have raised great concern for advertisers. They are concerned about disclosure. They are concerned about the legitimacy of claims made by bloggers. Simply put they want to see posts before they go live. The more comfortable we can make advertisers (and their legal departments) the more Opportunities there will be for all participants.
Flexibility
Many advertisers need to launch campaigns within a given time frame. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work with our blogger’s schedules and that causes two problems:
- Bloggers miss out on good Opportunities
- Advertisers can’t fill their campaigns
This new system will allow us to release opportunities early, let as many people participate as possible, then release the posts within the advertisers campaign window. Don’t worry, you will always know when the post is scheduled to go live.
Blogger Protection
We have had issues in the past were advertisers rejected posts after they were already live, sometimes for reasons we can’t understand. This causes dismay for bloggers and a logistical nightmare for us. We want to create a system that guarantees payment if a post is made.
This Is The Future
Our goal is to create the highest quality, most efficient marketplaces for social media sponsorship. I hope you can get comfortable with direct publishing, it is a big part of our SocialSpark gameplan and will allow us to create a more prosperous future for our bloggers. I love you guys. I don’t want to lose any of you… but it is time for change.
This is a big leap for us too! Let’s go for it together.
It is interesting that you mention Facebook, Flicka and others, all of them have NO access nor connection to any of my blogs. I just don’t do Facebook. All of my social media is done by me personally not automated. Maybe that is why my blog is popular. I will still not be handing over the keys to my prize possessions. I was hacked by someone who managed to get into my wordpress blog and create a publisher account and then re-published all of my posts with hidden links. It took almost 5 months to find all of those links and remove them. I do not have “become a member” option on my blog anymore. Sorry but I don’t make enough money with the SS (opps did I say “the SS”?) to allow direct publishing.
Will there be a way in which we can define the category of the post, or can we edit the post once it is up and put it into the correct category? I’d hate to have all these direct posted posts go to undefined.
@Benspark
Yes, you can set your category. They are pulled in to SocialSpark.
Oh, Guess I’ll hold off on other questions till I see it in actual action with an opp. Thanks Ted
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ted murphy, Todd Miller. Todd Miller said: SocialSpark 2.0 Direct Publishing: I want to follow up on yesterday’s post about SocialSpark 2.0 and the concerns … http://bit.ly/c8No4C [...]
i had a feeling this is what you guys were planning when i saw the new SS stuff. i like this idea and i think its great
I love this version but getting some problem while authorizing .
The only part I am confused about is if posts will be going live on my blog as and when advertisers approve them – like with sponsored tweets. If that’s the case it makes the new SS a no go for me on several of my blogs. I am also confused as to how we are supposed to control interims if this is the way it will work? If an advertiser has 3 days to approve a post before it goes out that means I have to write an interim/non sponsored post, submit my socialspark opp and then wait until the advertiser has approved it (as long as 3 days!) before I can add a new post?
Is there a way I can revoke access without deleting my blog? I logged in yesterday and went through the process of claiming and authorizing each one (I’m not too concerned about the access thing, as I understand no one is going to be physically logging into it and it’s all just an automated system) but now want to revoke access on certain blogs until I am more clear how it works and have tested it on other blogs etc. I can only see the option to delete a blog, nothing to revoke access.
Realitytvfan brings up a good question. I often have to plan out posts carefully to have that “filler” post between the sponsored posts. So, how will that work in the new system? Will that requirement be lifted?
@RealtiyTVFan @Kris There will no longer be an interim post requirement in the new SocialSpark. Once the advertiser approves your post it is approved.
@Carri, thanks so much for the info! That makes things a lot easier.
Kris
This is a fantastic clarification and the fact that SocialSpark allows bloggers to create a separate author account to provide is even better and will allay any fears. You can set default categories as well which helps.
Thanks Carri.
I have my reservations about not being in complete control over when posts go live on my blog but am looking forward to the official launch and think a lot of it sounds great (like using google analytics to collect stats!).
Pretty please release an opp that’s open to all when you go live so we can test things out
[...] InPostLinks, Sponzai and SponsoredTweets among other programs very quickly released an update on IZEA’s website to address the Direct Publishing questions people had about the new SocialSpark 2.0.The primary [...]
I have already thought of the time saver this would be for Sponzai where you just cut/paste a guest post anyway, imagine if you just go into Sponzai and click “approve” and the post auto publishes for you!
@Realitytvfan agree about needing a test opp open for all bloggers wanting to test the system.
@dragonblogger funny you should mention that ; )
“If you have any concern about providing us with access to your blog we suggest that you create a new user account just for us. You can always delete that account and we will no longer have access to your blog.”
Oops..didn’t see this blog post and I posted the same suggestion on the other blog post about the v2.0 release
I guess lots of people are still getting edgy about it and didn’t even know of your new blog post
Thanks for the further clarification, Ted.
So to keep it simple for simple me, is this basicly like sponsored tweets where we get the info offered to us personally, type it, then we don’t post it to our blogs, but send it to be approved by the advertiser and/or SS, then you launch it to our blog like you send our tweets to our Twitter accounts?
I don’t know all the technical terms, but is that basically it?
If so, sounds good to me.
Claudia
Hi, Ted. I read your post with great interest. Your comparison to direct publishing with, say, Twitter and Facebook is not comparing apples to apples, however. I don’t own and manage Twitter and Facebook. I own and manage my own blog. More appropriately, it would be like SocialSpark requiring the usernames and passwords of the Twitter and Facebook CEOs. And I don’t think they’d give it over, either.
I still think IZEA is asking too much of bloggers. You ask us to trust you, but why can’t you trust us? Why can’t we bloggers continue to publish our own posts on our own blogs when we decide? Moreover, SS still requires interim posts… how on earth will this be managed if two entities are posting?
I do not like giving up absolute control of my blogs. If giving up my property and rights is “the future,” what a bleak future indeed!
I think the direct publishing requirement is unjust. It proves that you do not trust the bloggers to publish our own posts.
Whoops, I just spotted Carri’s comment about the interim post requirement being phased out for 2.0.
Still, I must stand firm with my argument.
My blogs are MY property. My Twitter account is not.
If you trust the bloggers to write and publish the posts themselves, then please remove the direct publishing requirement.
The “author” solution is not a bad one, per se, but I feel this requirement is treating bloggers with great distrust and asking far too much of them. If that trust was mutual between IZEA and bloggers, this entire direct publishing requirement would be completely unnecessary.
I have to agree with Rebecca. If IZEA can’t trust the bloggers to do a good job then where do they stand as a company? If IZEA has to constantly monitor the output quality of the bloggers in the system then maybe purging those bloggers that do not stand up to par would be the better answer. Automation, via Direct Publishing, is not the answer to quality.
I’m going to give this a try and then comment on whether or not I support it. I do have a question though that may sound rather silly, but the way my blog is structured it isn’t to me. Each blog post has a thumbnail for a photo so I add a photo for my posts. Will I be able to do that is SS 2.0?
@ConnieFoggles: You will be able to add a photo to your post after it is published, but not before. Since you’ll be notified 6+ hours before the post is published, you will know when to look for it. Do you have a default photo to show for the thumbnail that can be displayed in the period between a post getting directly published and you updating the photo?
@Jamie: I’ll look into using a default photo. My blog was recently re-formatted, so I have to learn all about all of the bells and whistles. Thanks for the suggestion and for the info about the 6 hour window time frame.
I just received the early invite and I’m gonna test it out to see how this goes since I have given you guys your own login but a test opp would definitely be helpful to know exactly how this is going to play out.
[...] awesome, but you get the gist of the types of blogs we’re looking for. You will need to have Direct Publishing enabled in your SocialSpark account, and we’re looking for blogs with certain levels of [...]
[...] You must have an account in SocialSpark 2.0 and 2. You must have Direct Publishing [...]
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