More and more the use of ‘social media’ is becoming some sort of ‘bargaining chip’ to get free work.

I’ve noticed this becoming more of a trend in the event & creatives industry. I’ve had chats with a few people and it seems it’s not just me who has experienced this. Basically each month I have a load of people asking me  for something  and and they don’t want to pay for it. It usually is followed by a ‘promise’ of something in return.. ‘I’ll twitter about you’ or ‘I’ll put you on my website’. You get the idea.

Then there’s the ‘showcase’ events. We all know these.. ‘If you give us a load of free stuff you can come to the event’ Promises of ‘exposure to new clients’ is a favourite one.

I had a great offer last year – In return for photographic coverage of an event, I was offered ‘membership’ of this collective of venues. I asked if this would enable me to be a preferred supplier to the venues- no it wouldn’t. I was offered the membership which had the cost of 1500 quid..but in return for this I had to do 1500 quids worth of work over the year for these people NOT including the event I was asked to shoot! What tosh.

I am known to be a bit of a grumpy old man, but think about how ridiculous this is. Imagine going into Tesco and telling them that you only want to pay 2 quid for a 10 quid product, or buying a DVD and telling them in HMV that you’ll talk about them on your blog. It’s just stupid!

Yet.. here we are in the event industry and it seems to be becoming the norm that clients ask us for something for nothing.. I don’t mean a discount (which I often give) but totally free.. and worse of all they think its totally fine to ask.

‘Can you throw in another 2 days shooting within the budget?’

‘Can you do it for 50 quid and some tweets?’

‘Can you do 10 days edit and we’ll pay you for 5?’

‘You have a camera, so can we borrow it for a shoot? You don’t need to be there. We’ll pick it up and return it the next day.’

The worst thing is that we are made to feel guilty if we decline the ‘offer’. It becomes OUR issue that the event can’t be shot, or covered, or catered for within the budget that the client has.

Why has this madness not been stopped? We all seem to get suckered in time after time.

Recently I did a video piece for a client. TOTALLY for free. I was promised the world in returns of PR, exposure (no pun intended) and getting my company name around the internet. This was a video for a campaign that was going to go places.. people will love it.. it will be all over the web, you’ll get press coverage, loads of hits to your site.

What do you think happened?

In short – they got a free viral that would have cost several thousand in pre and post production.. squeezed every ounce of patience out of me, then complained when I raised the issue that their campaign was a pile of piss and no one cared enough to even watch the film. 200 views on YouTube doesn’t constitute a successful campaign. I’d have got more hits in a videoof me dangling my testicles over a fence.

So good people my new years resolution is that I’m done with free. Its time we took a stand and did the same, or we will be perpetually made to feel guilty for not doing everything for nothing.

Wishing you all great business for 2010.

Here’s a video that sums it up perfectly.Enjoy!