I swore I would not be one of those people who acted like a blogging “expert” before my blog was one year old.  Well, I’ve only been blogging for eight months, and I am by no means an expert, but I do have a few pet peeves (or bugbears) that I feel the need to vent about.  Thus a new series is born!!

Webster’s defines due diligence as:

research and analysis of a company or organization done in preparation for a business transaction

More than once, lately, I have run into the situation where a blogger offers other bloggers an opportunity (sponsored post, ad placement, etc.). Then when I pursued the offer, I found out that either the sponsor was offering far less money than what had been mentioned previously, or upon googling the sponsor, I found that they had no track record.  Now I will not recommend or place ads on my blog for any sponsor or product I do not have first hand knowledge of, so I passed up these opportunities.  But I personally believe that the bloggers offering the opportunity should have vetted the sponsors ahead of time.  I know it is a lot of work to offer opportunities to other bloggers, but I also believe that taking that little bit of extra time to do your due diligence is well worth it.

Another thing I have noticed is that some bloggers (especially newbies) get so excited and anxious to do their first sponsored post or their first review, that they take whatever is offered them without doing due diligence or without thinking about whether this product or topic is something their readers would actually be interested in.  I understand if you’re trying to make money from your blog (so am I), but if you turn off your readers, you’ll lose your sponsorships anyway.

So the bugbear fix of the week is : Do Your Due Diligence!!