I'm done "engaging with brands"

I'm giving up on product testing sites. I've been a member of some of them for years and years, but I think I'm done.

Part of it is that they've gotten so popular that the products aren't very good - instead of being given a product to sample, I'll be given coupons for that product to give out. Or I'll be sent a cheap marketing trinket with a single-use sample instead of enough of the product to really give it a try. And the social media they ask you to do now! I try to keep my social media personal, not tweet after tweet about products with eight hashtags in each one. I just can't be that chipper.

I'm also done with the paying-you-pennies for your time things like Gigwalk and JingIt. I gave up mystery shopping for a similar reason - my time has a value, and if I'm not getting paid enough for it then I'd rather use it for leisure than trying to monetize every moment of my waking life. I set a dollar value on focus groups a long time ago, and while I've done fewer since then, I've been better compensated.

I was getting irritated with all of these "opportunities", but then I stumbled upon this blog post at Serious Pony and I got serious. At no point in my life, and at no point in the future, am I ever going to think "If only I'd spent more time engaging with brands."

And so, goodbye guerrilla marketing. Goodbye, sites that take a year to earn enough to send me the minimum payment of $10. So long, Facebook pages of brands that I "liked" in order to get a coupon. Syonara to all the advertising disguised as "useful content" that I can "engage" with. My mental resources and my time are not for sale.