How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul

Whether you are a new blogger or not, I hope this blog post helps you to blog for profit the right way or at least help you to define what your brand will be and what is the purpose of you blogging. Profit? Receiving free product? A hobby? Are you an Anything goes blogger? Are you more of a defined brand? Blogging for profit is something we all aim to accomplish as bloggers. Blogging may be challenging (if you recall my blog post about Things Bloggers Find Annoying), but as challenging as it is, it is also so rewarding in so many different levels that sometimes go beyond profit. But how do you blog for profit without selling your soul? We have all at some point fallen into the selling our soul trap and that is totally fine. It is completely part of the process. I think the important point here is to not keep selling your soul for profit, but to rather put your brand first even if you lose profit along the way.

Charging a Fee

When I first started blogging I was accepting to do projects for free in exchange for product all the time. I was totally ok with this because I had not established my brand to the level I wanted. To me, it didn’t make sense to charge a fee because my brand was not well founded yet. It wasn’t until I hit 5k followers on Instagram that I felt I had accomplished a stable brand or even for that matter that I had finally figured out what blogging means to me and how I would like my brand to be perceived by others. I then started charging a fee that coincided with my following and engagement numbers plus what I considered to be a fair rate for my brand and the work that went behind each content creation. It is up to you when you choose to charge a fee, and what fee you charge, but be reasonable. Don’t ask a brand to pay you $600 for an Instagram Post when you only have 3k followers and your engagement is lower than 2%. It is one thing to undervalue your brand and it is another to overvalue. Both equally dangerous.

Know What Your Brand is Worth

I cannot stretch enough how important it is to evaluate the worth of your brand. Based on the quality of your work and how much time you devote to create your content, think about what your brand is worth to you. When you are a freelancer and have bills to pay, it is hard to turn down brands that are not willing to pay your full rate, but my personal preference is to stay true to my brand and turn down brands when I feel the compensation does not reflect the time, effort and work I am going to put into creating the content. As I said before, if you want to build a refined brand and make the profit your brand deserves, you will have to lose profit along the way. Also, when the expectations do not reflect the compensation that is being offered, it is important for you to think twice before saying yes. This is definitely a difficult element, but it is a principal I follow.

Ask Yourself These  Very Important Questions

1.Do I like the product I have to promote?

2. Would I want to buy this product?

3. Is it a good fit with my brand?

If you answer no to most of these questions, then you better turn down the collaboration down. Again, it is hard to turn down a brand especially when payment is involved, but why are you promoting a product you don’t even like? It makes no sense! Promote products you actually use in your everyday life!

Your Personal Brand Comes First

I have turned down great opportunities with great brands that were not necessarily brands that matched my personal style or products I would normally use. I am very strict with the collaborations I do and do not accept. Thankfully, I have been fortunate that brands recognize my style and me as a brand so I don’t receive too many weird requests. I did once have one brand reach out to me with a budget that wanted me to promote men’s underwear. Payment was going to be more than satisfactory, but it made no sense for me to accept. Men’s underwear does not have anything to do with my brand. I do have posts with Kamiran, but it still doesn’t seem a good fit to be posting about the topic.. Now, if I had said yes to the promotion this would have been a great example of how I am selling my soul for profit. The brand I am promoting has nothing to do with my own brand, but I am saying yes because of the compensation. And I get it, we all have different financial capabilities, but it all comes down to your audience. Your audience knows when you are promoting something that doesn’t make sense for your brand.

For me, compensation does not come first, which is hard when you have bills to pay, but you also want to have a refined brand. Yes, there are some bloggers that do promotion after promotion, and maybe that is their brand, but for me it is important to invest in quality partnerships. Collaborating with a brand shouldn’t be just about getting paid. Collaborating should be about loving a product and promoting to your audience.

If Compensation Isn’t Offered, Is The Product Offered Worth My Time?

For example, say Louis Vuitton reached out to me and said they don’t have a budget, but will give me an LV purse in exchange for a post. You better believe I am going to accept without payment. The product on its own is of significant value so I am not losing on my part. Creating content is time-consuming, so when a brand reaches out to promote a pair of flip flops without any compensation, chances are I will turn this opportunity down. Why would I spend 1 hour or more creating content for a pair of flip flops? The LV purse on the other hand is a great investment. The product being gifted for promotion should be equivalent to how much work and thought goes behind each post, so this is when a lot of debating will happen as to whether or not you should accept.

Does Collaborating With This Brand Add Value To My Brand?

Going back to the LV example. LV is a prestigious brand that will instantly add value and elevate the worth of your brand. Yes, it sucks they are not paying, but you are still gaining from this collaboration. Ask yourself if the brand you are collaborating with is going to add value to your own brand. This is crucial to not selling your soul. Don’t say yes to brands just because you are going to receive a free product. Saying yes just for the sake of saying yes is a no no. Sometimes you may want to support a local small brand without compensation even if the product is a pair of flip flops, and that is totally ok in my books too. I have done unpaid posts for small local brands because it is important for me to give back to my community. Also, I liked the product so I was ok with not being compensated for promoting it. So say yes to unpaid campaigns, but do it for the right reasons and only if you are ok with it!

Ask The Brand For The Budget

This is where the selling your soul happens the most. A brand will reach out to you telling you how much they love your work and are dying to work with you then they end their email by saying there is no budget for this campaign. I always ask myself when brands tell me they have no budget Would they ask Julia Roberts to do this for free?  In most cases the answer is no, so why should you be promoting something without compensation when you have to do so much work for it?Story creation, photography, editing etc?  Ask the brand what their marketing budget is, and honestly don’t be afraid to turn down something because compensation is not being offered. There is so much time and effort that goes into content creation. Be fair to your brand because no one else will. Your time is money!

Negotiate

Negotiate the deliverables, negotiate the compensation amount. Just because a brand is offering you $80 for an Instagram post it doesn’t mean you have to accept. Always give your rates before accepting compensation that is way lower than your usual fees. The harsh reality is that even though you have a rate at times brands will not have the appropriate budget that reflects your rate. What do you do then? First step, is to think about how much you love the brand and what they are offering instead of the monetary compensation. Also, if the compensation you are being offered is not compatible with the deliverables, negotiate. For example, say you charge $120 per Instagram post, but a brand says they only have a budget of $200 and expect you to do 3 Instagram posts. Don’t be shy or afraid to go back to them and ask to do 2 Instagram posts instead of 3.

Quality of Compensated Posts

When my posts are compensated, you better believe I spend hours trying to come up with the best fitting way to promote the brand, and come up with ideas that are new and unique to previous posts I have done. If you are getting paid for a post you better be pouring your heart and soul into the content you are creating. For me any post, but particularly sponsored posts should be your best work. Why would anyone want to pay you to create a post when it seems like you put no time and effort into it? You also sell your soul the moment you stop caring about your brand.  

Find a Balance When Building Relationships

Don’t get me wrong it is of utmost importance to build a strong working relationship with a brand or a PR company, but you also have to think about yourself as a brand and how you can build a profitable brand. Do not sacrifice your principles or your values in order to build relationships. There has to be a fine balance between both sides. It is a give and take relationship. That has always been a core value for me while blogging and because I valued myself, but also valued the brands I worked with I have been able to build some amazing relationships along the way. No one wants to be the Katherine Heigl of the blogging world, but that doesn’t mean you are going to let brands or PR companies mistreat you so that you can be on their good side. Build positive relationships, but know where to draw the line and stand up for yourself when something rubs you the wrong way. I personally do not care if I burn bridges with brands or PR Companies. If someone doesn’t respect me as a person or a brand, why would I want to work with them? Not everyone is going to like you or your brand and I am ok with that. Don’t sell your soul and principles so that you can guarantee yourself future collabs. That is my core value when it comes to seeing my blog as a business.

 In Conclusion:

My number one advice so that you do not sell your soul for profit in the blogging world is to take a moment and think about what is being offered first before you jump the gun and reply YES. The land of  YES is a dangerous zone if you do not take your time to think. Because next thing you know, you have committed to a project that is not compensated and you end up spending hours of your life creating content that you hate and in some cases will add no value to your own personal brand. Blog in a way in which you are not selling your soul for profit, but rather you are building a refined brand. Blog with intention, blog with honesty and blog in a way where your collaborations nurture your brand with quality, substance, and in a way where your own personal self shines through it.