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Malaysian advertisers requiring disclosure

lilian — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:18:50 +0000

Recently, local advertisers in Malaysia through the middleman ads company require bloggers like me to disclose our local advertorials.

I have written many advertorials without a disclosure and most times, my blog readers do not know it is a paid post. I did not deceive them but did not exactly openly declared that I get certain services and products for free and my post is a paid post.

In US, it is against the law not to disclose a sponsored post. Over here, I believe there is now such law implemented for local ads. Therefore, I wonder what other Malaysian bloggers think of disclosing a paid post?

I feel it is not exactly necessary to openly say ‘This is a paid post’ if I personally know the products well and have used it. Otherwise, I would study it well, weigh the pros and cons, state them in my blog post and do not see why I need to tell.

For example, I once wrote a very tough subject about hybrid cars. I know nothing about hybrid cars but my son does. So, I paid him a portion of my income and get him to read, study, research and explain to me. Then, I personally wrote the post. Whether it was paid or not, at least I learn a new thing and my blog readers benefited from reading about it.

At other times, I get free hair removal services, free slimming courses and etc and whatever I shared in the blog post are my real experiences. I do not see why I need to tell my blog readers that I get those expensive services for free too. The most is they think I am that frivolous to get hair removal. The worst is they think I am being a boastful blogger who uses free services without disclosing. Other than that, I did not add any fake testimonials or give any false information.

So, what do you think? Is it necessary to disclose our paid advertorials locally eventhough we are not required to? I will have to do that from now on but I will put it subtly because I think a straightforward disclosure will denied our advertisers who are paying us good money a proper evaluation. Many blog readers have that mentality that if a post is paid, we are crapping lies.

Then again, as bloggers we need to be truthful and not do hard selling on our advertisers behalf, giving empty promises and such. It works both way. Local advertisers have to choose carefully which bloggers are selected to review and local bloggers have to write professionally so as not to spoil the image of the brandnames.

What’s your point of view?

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Hiaks…Celebrating my first RM30K

lilian — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:09:08 +0000

If you recognise where this screenshot is taken from, good.
If you don’t, you probably missed one of the best place to make money online in Malaysia.

A cool RM3K is coming this month and also the next. I have made it a point to spend one third of my local income on me, myself, I every month. And I notice I have under-pampered myself because the credit card bill just arrived and I only spent RM1.3K on my credit card bills and most of them are purchases I made for groceries, books and stuffs for my sons.

So, must make it a point to spend more on myself so that I have more motivation to make more money.

I think I could make twice the amount if I have lived in KL because all the goodies go to KL bloggers. Penang bloggers are often passed over because we are not the cool and happening crowd. Another thing is some local advertisers hate me for my political stand. Not that I care, doh…..I won’t change the tune of my blog, everrrr to suit advertisers. Take it or leave it, I don’t really care.

So how much have you made from this company?

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I have completed rehab

lilian — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:39:21 +0000

Most make money bloggers will tell you about their addictions to checking blog traffic stats and also checking the pennies and cents that trickle in during the whole day. Sometimes, the addiction is so bad, we check almost everytime we are near the computer. Sometimes, we check every few minutes.

And when we are away for a few days to some foresaken island with no internet access, we will be squirming on the fabulous beaches, wondering how much we have made in our Adsense account, was traffic today better than yesterday and so on. When we first get home, we will login into all our accounts and start checking the stats for the last seven days. Normally, we are hardly away from the internet access for more than two nights. One week may cause us foaming in the mouth, grinding on the ground and hallucinating.

But I am glad that right now, this past week, I am out of rehab. Sometimes, I forget to check my Adsense for 2 days. I have not logged into my Chitika every day. I didn’t bother to check how much those banner ads are paying this month. I only logged into PayPal at the beginning of the month and middle of the month to withdraw my income.

I don’t check my AlRahji bank every day to see if my PayPal transaction is through. I don’t check my Adsense payment panel starting from 25th of the month. I only remember to withdraw Adsense through Western Union last Saturday.

So, yes! I am completely cured of my addiction to making money. Wait, it is not that I don’t have money coming in but the urge to check every few minutes is no longer there. Whoopee!

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Online income and recession

lilian — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:15:59 +0000

There is so much talk about the US recession being an L shape and Malaysia recession being a U shape and not a V shape etc etc. Being an average income family, I do not worry so much about the recession hitting my family.

However, I can foresee it affecting my online income. Recession is definitely going to affect the make money blogging sector. When companies stopped spending so much on advertising and consumers stopped shopping, the oasis will dry up and we will be fighting amongst ourselves to get a piece of the cake.

A lot of enterprising individuals are already promoting blogging for money as a way to supplement the daily wages. So, there are going to be an increase of bloggers in this already saturated blogosphere. When times are bad, more will resort to black hat methods which make it even harder to make money. One sneaky black hatter is equivalent to 100 or even more noob bloggers.

Then, we are going to see our blog posts being ripped and reuse by these new bloggers. As it is, a church friend already told me she is attending a blogging course, given free of charge by someone. This someone said blogging will make money and recipe blogs are the best money making blog. It was hinted that it is not hard to make recipe blogs because recipes are easily found in books. Good thing it was in church that the conversation took place or I will curse the person to hell. You see, the person gives free blogging lesson but sells webhosting and domain. I told my friend that blogging is free and one does not need to invest in any hosting or domain until one is very sure that blogging is enjoyable.

So has recession already affected your income? My blogging income was reduced several months ago but I think it was due to my diversion to do other things like taking up courses, doing volunteer work and spending time with my family. I do notice that advertisers are getting more demanding and only want high PR blogs. Some companies demand that we only blog for them and not other companies.

In a recession like this, we are at the mercies of the demanding companies and we either follow their rules or forget about making money blogging. Me? I will stick to my positive views that businesses still need to do their SEO and need to buy links and paid posts. They still need good quality blogs with good PR to do so. So, I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to survive, albeit on lower income.

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I’ve got my ‘accountant’ to fill my W-8BEN US tax form

lilian — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:58:23 +0000

The fine prints and the number of questions and boxes to fill scares the hell out of me. Lucky I have an accountant hubby who took the form and get the job done for me. I only sign on the dotted lines and didn’t even read what was filled by hubby.

The W-8BEN is the Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding. Big words, scary sounding, ain’t it?

I have no choice but to fill it because one of the companies cannot pay me two months of my income and it has come up to xyz amount. Hmmm…one cannot be too explicit from now on, eh?

I had signed and mailed the PDF format back to the company and keep my fingers crossed that Uncle Sam will not suck my blood. I am poor enough already.

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