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Offered a free trip to review. How do I ethically disclose?
Hi, I am a very novice travel blogger and I don’t even get much traffic to my site but I have a little influence in my small niche. So a company offered me a free trip in exchange for me writing and posting about it. When I post on my site it’s pretty easy to include a disclaimer but my question is about a social media post. If I write a Trip Review post and say “I got this trip for free in exchange for this review” I feel like people will dismiss it as dishonest when it’s not. I intend to review honestly. But not disclosing feels wrong. What would you do?
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1 Reply
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Be honest while reviewing. The problem isn’t that travel influencers were offered a free trip in exchange for a review, it’s that they heavily skew their reviews to be positive and mislead folks on how good the experience was.
Just say “I got the opportunity to travel to X, and here’s my honest review”.
I doubt people care that you got it for free – they care about your review.
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Talk to your viewers like you’re talking to your best friend. I want to know what things were actually really great and your host is going to want to know what they can improve on. Maybe like a hotel doesn’t have spare toiletries or something and that was a bummer so your viewer should doublecheck. Make sure they don’t forget theirs or something (example)
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You can also say negatives/positives that don’t have to do directly with the accommodations. Tell me about how close or far it is to eating out/nightlife. Does everything close early or does nothing open until 1? Is it walkable or will I need to have my own vehicle? Does the place have a shuttle or are taxis easy to access?
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