Free is Not Free

The Hidden Cost of "Free" Products in Content Creation

About four years ago I received an email from LG wanting to send me a monitor to share on my Instagram account.  Naturally, I said yes because why the hell not? I don’t think I’ve ever typed a faster email response.

Fast forward to a few days and about a hundred photos later, my post went live and was received really well by my audience.

I was ecstatic but also tired because I had spent hours taking photos and editing them to post on social media AND share with LG. Our agreement was that they were going to send me a monitor, I’ll create the content, post it on my page, and send them about 30-40 additional photos for their own marketing (I was very new to this and quite naive).

I got a brand-new monitor that costs more than $1,000 for a post and some photos.

If you create content online this isn’t a new concept. As a matter of fact, this is the most common type of collaboration you will get from brands.

Nowadays the reception for these sorts of posts has devolved from “Wow, that’s so awesome!” to “You’re just lucky you got a free product!”

But was I really lucky?

A few weeks later after sharing my Instagram post, I saw one page that had 1.2 million followers share a few photos I had taken for LG. In their post, it clearly states that they were paid by LG to promote the monitor using MY PHOTOS.

As I said, I was very naive at this time so I reached out to the page owner and asked around. They said that they were given the photos by LG and were paid to post them on their page. I’m like, yeah that makes sense because that’s how marketing works. But why do I feel so sick to my stomach?! It’s because I felt like I got the crappy end of the bargain. I felt taken advantage of.

To clarify, LG had me sign a contract stating that they own all photos I sent them in perpetuity. This was part of the agreement for sending me the monitor so it’s not like they tried to trick me. I was just too excited to actually READ the contract.

I learned a lot from this experience but what I want you to take home today is that “Free” isn’t really free in the world of content creation. Instead of paying an agency to write the campaign, an art director and photographer to create the visuals, and a billboard company to put up the sign that would potentially show the content to their ideal demographic, they gave it to an overly excited freelancer for the cost of a monitor.

They saved hundreds of thousands of dollars to advertise directly to their ideal demographic by simply sending out a monitor and distributing photos (that I took) to high-profile pages.

In short, they got lucky, not me. But at least I came out of that experience much wiser.

I’m not saying don’t ever accept “Free” products in exchange for some work. In the beginning, you will have to go through this as you build your online presence and portfolio. Just make sure you do it with a plan. Yes, you can even keep doing this to help further elevate your social media presence but at some point, you will realize that you can’t use a monitor to buy food or pay the bills.

The point is, if you accept products for free, then make sure you are doing so with the purpose of furthering yourself. When you have a clear reason for doing so you will be far more prepared and won’t have to feel taken advantage of like me. 

Ask yourself questions like “Will this help establish my presence as more trustworthy?” or “Will I attract the right audience and brands after I share this?”

There’s not one true way of making deals but there are best practices. I’ve certainly learned a lot from my personal experience and from other creator friends. Sometimes a product exchange can even be the thing that gets your foot in the door to your dream industry.

But remember, Free is not “Free”. Not really. There is always something that needs to be exchanged. And that applies to you and the other party. Do your best to look past the value of the object presented to you and think long-term.

Free means nothing is expected in return. So if you are expected to create content around this product, then it’s work. You’re just not being paid in actual currency. At least maybe not outright.

So the next time someone criticizes you for promoting stuff you got for “free”, you can just smile knowing that you’re doing the work. And you’re one step closer to your goal.

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If you want to check my video about this specific product, you can watch it below. Be warned though, this was one of my earliest videos so it’s far from… uhm… refined.

Have an awesome week!