WordSpreadsQuickly.com

I’ve been reading a few posts about Citizen Journalism and citJ websites including some great posts by Steve Outing, Lisa Williams, and Susan Memit.

The compensation topic keeps coming up and I’m sure there is one group ready to “bring home the bacon” for these community-minded experts if newsrooms don’t – word of mouth marketing firms.

I believe this goes deeper than simply “paying for posts” or full disclosures.

Buzz marketing firms are already swarming bloggers to get paid posts in addition to building out their own character blogs to support client campaigns which may include paid-search marketing, online product marketing and authentic word-of-mouth to generate interest and revenue.

It’s clear from the posts I reviewed that many believe the citizen journalists have a distinct advantage over paid-journalists as they struggle to establish credible reputations in the newsroom – the trust of the reader.

The question is how will word of mouth firms approach these individuals? “I’ll give you $100 for a story about hats of meat?” And, I’m sure developers are already out there working on crawling blogs to gather email addresses, IM screen names and tag them to geographic location/IP address.

Is the referral power of citizen journalist limited to election coverage and committee hearings in small towns? Can they get ziggy with commerce? Is it ethical to approach them? Can these bloggers also make commercial referrals of products and services and still retain trust? How many posts-for-profit can they push out to their readers during the holiday rush??

Who knows…

So, I decided to send an email to Jason Calacanis to get his thoughts.

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Hey Jason,

I feel I know your position on word of mouth marketing and the unethical practices some call “buzz.” Regardless, I’m interested in your thoughts on citJ websites and compensation for citizen journalists. I believe word of mouth firms are likely to target these bloggers. Could I interest you in AIM-based interview for my blog?

Many thanks,

Todd Tweedy
WordSpreadsQuickly.com

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Technorati Tags: Citizen Journalism, citJ websites, buzz marketing, word of mouth marketing, Jason Calacanis, Todd Tweedy