EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
Sponsored Posts
This post is all about the sponsored post, and how it works. Everything from conception, to final product – AND the biggest question… WHY.
When I started Happy Mum Happy Child, I did it to document the activities with my kids. Added in a couple of recipes, and voila! My website began.
Did you know that when I first started Happy Mum Happy Child, I also planned on selling activity kits for kids? Because I always knew I didn’t want to go back to work, but also had to support my family in the long run. However, that didn’t work out, as I’m no good at selling products.
So I started reviewing products. Then I started talking about post natal depression. Then I got an audience.
People started paying attention to what I had to say – regular folks like you and me, and then businesses as well wanting to capitalize on my audience.
That’s when I became aware of the fact that people actually got paid to do this shit. HOLY CRAP! I couldn’t believe it.
I’m no fool – anyone wanting to work with me, is mainly in it for my audience. I get it.
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Right from the very beginning I was open and honest with you guys about the fact that I would be doing sponsored content.
What is sponsored content? Well it’s basically where a company says “We have a product that we would like you to talk about”. I write the content. Publish it. They pay me.
That is a sponsored post in it’s simplest form.
However – to me, it’s not just that. It’s so much more.
I get asked to promote or talk about products ALL the time. I get maybe 10-15 requests each week. And do you know how many I say yes to? Maybe 1, or 2; sometimes none. Because I have a philosophy that I don’t want my page to be clogged up with sponsored content. Not only that, I don’t want to work with everyone because I don’t like every single product.
I am very specific in who and what I talk about. It has to work for ME, and it has to work for YOU (my audience).
I believe a sponsored post is a collaboration between myself and a company who is happy to pay. We work together. It’s a partnership.
The company is paying for access to my audience – that I have spent time building. They are paying for the time it takes me to write the post. They are paying for me.
A company NEVER tells me what to write – everything that is written is always my own opinion, and my own words. I never take on any work that doesn’t sit right with me.
Just because I am paid to write a post, doesn’t mean the post isn’t genuine. It literally means I was paid to write it.
Nobody is holding a gun to my head telling me “you must write about how amazing this product is” – because if I have done my job right, I have paired myself with a company where I already believe that.
Again – I do not talk about anything I don’t like myself, or think my audience will not like. That’s just how I work.
I sometimes get comments on my posts that say “I loved this until I realised it was sponsored” … why?! Like I said above – just because I was paid at the end of it doesn’t mean I didn’t put a whole lot of thought and effort into it. It doesn’t mean it’s fake, or that I was handed the post on a platter.
It just means I was asked to write it, and I thought carefully about it before doing so.
Does the person who is paid to write a book make them a bad person, or make any of what they have written any less genuine? I don’t think so.
The sponsored posts that I do, help to keep my business running. I don’t need to explain that to anyone – because you all know that we work to get paid to provide for our families. At the moment, the money I make goes straight back into running Happy Mum Happy Child and my family don’t even see it.
If they did, we might not have ripped couches, or unfinished walls. Heck we still don’t have a proper bathroom.
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Eventually I would like to be able to help my family out, and not have to go back to work when the kids start school. That is my dream – to be around for the kids when they need me. Isn’t that everyone’s dream?
I work my ass off, putting in at least 6 hours each day into the running of Happy Mum Happy Child. I wake up at 4am and start the day thinking about what I’m doing with the kids, and if I can talk about it with you guys.
I then get a couple of hours when my boy has a nap.
And this is my SECONDARY job. My first job is my kids, because I’m a Full Time Mum.
Also, I don’t get paid for everything that is “sponsored”. I do a lot of stuff for free because I can. Because not everyone has a budget to pay for stuff, and I’m ok with that.
Edited to add: ALL of my content is disclosed. I am very open about the fact I get paid to do posts, and I think it’s really important that you guys know it. So my post will state it’s sponsored in the category, and at the end of the post it will state “thanks to blah blah blah for making this post possible”. On Facebook it will say the same, with usually a hashtag sponsored or ad.
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Also guys – the way Facebook works is that if you want a post to reach your audience, you have to pay for it. That’s right – when I post a post on Facebook (no matter what it is), it will only be sent to about 10% of you. Probably not even that. So on some posts, I will PAY Facebook to push it out to more audience, so everyone sees it. Facebook class this as a “sponsored post”. So even if my post is not technically sponsored by a company, it will still say sponsored. So please don’t take what it says directly under the post as gospel: read the text of the post to find out if it’s sponsored. I will ALWAYS state if it’s sponsored or not:
Example:
So do you think the sponsored post is bad? Do you think less of a post because it says “thanks to blah blah blah for making this post possible”?
Let me know what you think (be nice though haha) …
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