IZEA, word-of-mouth, and sponsorships

Here on Mashable there's some discussion about IZEA's soon-to-launch sponsored tweet program, built upon their existing blogging platform of the same nature. With a history of funding, Mashable expects IZEA to make at least lot of noise.

Meanwhile on News From The Herd, Dirk Singer points to data indicating weak preference for bloggers and sponsored posts in consumer decision making.

As Dirk rightly points out, sponsored posts aren't really the highly sought "word-of-mouth" to begin with. I'm reminded of some thoughts I was having recently on sponsorships just the other day, on how "sponsorship" translates far too easily into "here let me give you money, in hopes that if you say my brand's name I'll get some kind of return." (as an aside, this is generally part of the 'every marketing problem is an awareness problem' fallacy).

There's a lot to say for the importance of relevance when it comes to sponsorships. There are in fact cases where a partnership between sponsor and sponsoree makes sense, or where the sponsoree is in genuine need of funding (and it's patrons appreciate the financial support). But far far too sponsorships many reflect elementary and pun-level thinking, piling onto the spew of clutter that is the stuff of short-sighted marketing.

Consider that even when a level of relevance exists, there are two kinds of sponsorships. One type is where a brand spends money for that wishful "word-of-mouth" name dropping.

Another is when a sponsor genuinely meets the needs of a sponsoree, as decided beforehand by the natural course of an sponsoree's operations or existing life. These are the relationships that when nurtured generate true word-of-mouth.