I’ve written and shared quite a lot of reviews and promotions lately, and I thought I’d write this because I imagine that it’s a question a lot of people have.
If you’re given something for free, how can people trust what you say about it?
Sometimes I’m even paid to write reviews. Surely you can’t trust those?
Modern ‘Influencers‘ get a lot of stick for hawking any old shite and indeed, some of the less scrupulous ones will try and tell you a packet of crisps changed their lives if it’s free. Probably with a picture of them pouting, holding said item.
A bit like this, maybe, but less shit obviously. And with a filter. And they’d probably tidy their kitchen or crop it or something.
My role as a blogger is a bit different; rather than sell sell sell-ing to an Instagram audience, my primary objective when dealing with brands is to provide useful, long-form content with a much longer life span. Something that Google will like and can live on the internet indefinitely.
It’s very possible however that to the casual observer it may seem like I eulogise profusely about everything I get sent to review, or that I’m paid to promote. So how can you trust me?
CAN you trust me?
There is quite an easy explanation for the fact that reviews I write are overwhelmingly positive.
Before I agree to review or write about something, I do a bit of research first. I like to make sure that whatever is on offer is decent quality; I hate conflict, and having to tell someone I don’t like their product because I didn’t read all the angry 1* Amazon reviews first is something I wish to avoid. I’ve lived, I’ve learned.
I also turn a lot of things down on principle. I regularly get offered Chinese knock-off clothes (think Shein but even worse quality) or expensive pills and supplements, but you won’t find me promoting these (unless things get dire. Mortgage rates are shit…).
Sometimes things slip through the net and I agree to a review, and then find that whatever I’ve been sent isn’t great, the item doesn’t work as expected or I later find the company make bold claims that just aren’t true.
What do I do when a review item or experience is shite?
If this is the case, and it’s happened more than a few times, I’ll then go to the company and say something along the lines of ‘I thought this was a bit rubbish/total shit, do you still want me to write an honest review?‘. Often they’ll come back and say politely that they’d rather I didn’t, so I won’t bother.
This is why you’ll never find out about our attempts to make squishy fucking balls.
Sometimes they’ll ask me to write the review without the negatives, to which I respond a bunch of laughing emojis and generally I don’t get repeat work with those people. The sad thing is that I’m sure many bloggers will be manipulated or pressurised into this, with PR people citing breaches of contract and god knows what, which I suppose is why people get distrustful of online reviews in the first place.
Fortunately, I’m confident enough in my opinions – and have a large enough audience – that I can merrily tell them to fuck off. I’m not lying to appease some PR person, and I’m far more scared of you (the reader) and your justified anger if you buy something shit on my say so, than I am of them.
And then some things are just so laughably awful, that I can’t help but write the reviews anyway, because there’s nothing that gains traction on social media like a scathing review. I do try and do the shit sandwich method (this was good, this was pretty awful, this was alright) but sometimes the bread in that particular sandwich is very thin.
What about when they’re just… meh?
If something just doesn’t set me alight, I’ll write the review, but you probably won’t see me share it around too much. I realise that my personal taste isn’t always indicative of everyone’s, so I don’t want to put people off just because I don’t love it – but if someone is on Google actively seeking opinions, my middling one is out there for them to to find.
My reviews section on the blog is packed full of things like that and they bring me a lot of organic traffic and some affiliate income – but I don’t usually share them to my Facebook page because it’s probably not very interesting content.
Case in point, the LED light therapy face mask. Now I’m not saying that it definitely doesn’t work, but I used the thing for four weeks, every day, and it made absolutely no difference to how I looked, at all. Despite the fact that I’d get a 10% kickback if you bought it through my site, I’m not going to pretend it did make me look 25.
I try to mention the negatives too.
I’ll always try to do a balanced review and mention at least some negatives if I can think of any.
The best thing one can do when writing a review is talk about problems you encountered, as they may well befall other people too; this is Google traffic gold. Sometimes mentioning how something fell apart or didn’t work as expected, and how you fixed it or what you did is actually the best thing you can do, so it would be silly not to.
Other times, it just makes for a better story. Our meal at the Ivy was amazing but we had a waitress who was either mute or hated the human race (or just us, maybe). It wasn’t bad enough to write an awful review of the place as the food was banging, but it was worthy of a mention. The experience was hilarious and we still laugh about it now.
What about when I’m paid?
Reviews take a lot of time. As well as spending time getting to grips whatever it is you’re reviewing, there are photographs to be taken, research to do and a lot of readable, SEO-friendly copy to write and edit. It can take many hours.
As this is my job, I simply can’t justify the time spent for small value items, consumables etc. It would be more prudent of me to go out and buy them.
However, there is still a market for reviews of this kind. Therefore rather than say an outright no, I will offer the option of a paid review. However this is on the understanding that the fee is for my time, and will not buy an opinion. That is a sponsored post, or advertorial, and the two things are quite different and disclosed as such.
TL:DR: hopefully when I say that I like something, you can trust that I do, in fact, like it.
My air fryer, my army of robot vacuums, my beautiful sofa, the sexy water machine, and the kids’ Yoto players – all things that I would gladly part money with for, if I had any money left. If I claim to use something – like Wicked Uncle, or the JamDoughnut app I posted about recently – I’m not just saying that because I’m paid to, I have tried it out first and it’s worked for me.
You obviously don’t have to go out and buy any of the things I recommend; I would hope that you’re not that easily influenced. You’re not daft. However if you’re on the fence about something and you think you might go out and buy it, you can always email me, message me or leave a comment and ask questions.
And if you do decide to buy and you happen to buy it through my affiliate links, I’m always ever so grateful.
If you enjoyed this and you’re feeling generous, you can buy me a cup of tea or a glass of wine – or donate to my houseplant addiction fund – here.
You can also see my Amazon wish list here.