Sponsored Content Policy
Hey, Jonathan here.
I want to share with you in detail my philosophy and stance towards sponsored content, no matter what format I’m publishing in.
What is sponsored content?
Anything from receiving a premium plugin for free or being compensated to make a piece of content about a particular product or service is sponsored content. It’s pretty broad and when you look, you’ll find sponsored content is all over the place. In basically every case, the creator is required to disclose this. You’re even asked now when uploading a YouTube video if it’s sponsored or not.
It happens fairly regularly that I receive a discounted and/or free product from WordPress developers to test and sometimes create content on.
My stance is simple:
- Providing a sample copy or even paying for a content piece does not entitle the company to favorable coverage.
- No company gets any pre-release review of my content before it’s public.
- All thoughts are my own, regardless of whether I was compensated directly for the piece or received a free product.
- A sponsored piece of content cannot be a true review as there is inherent bias. As a result, you won’t see me call a sponsored piece a review.
For example, I got early access to Fluent Booking and made a video. It was a “first look” video with no claim to be a review.
Unscrupulous companies sometimes want to dictate what a creator will say or how they phrase things before it goes public, especially when referencing competitors, or in an attempt at making the audience believe they use that product when perhaps they are just simply covering it.
In the past, I’ve always tried to disclose if I received a product for free but I will ensure it’s even more clear moving forward. I’ll speak it in the video and include it in the video description, add a note in my blog post and social posts, etc.
So, this page is here to act as accountability for myself and one that you can use to gauge the accuracy and transparency of my content.
-Jonathan
Last Updated: May 2024