Ok, actually no I won’t blog for steak. I’m a vegetarian. But I bet plenty of other bloggers would take up such an offer.

Rajesh Setty emailed Chris Pirillo’s Braintrust list earlier this month with an email titled “Bloggers – free steaks anyone?” to promote the site AllAboutSteak.com and its sponsor Kansas City Steaks. In it, Raj wrote:

If you are a blogger and would be willing to provide some visibility – KCS wants to reward you with a gift packet (of steaks) sent to your address.

His email conjured up in my mind an image of a homeless blogger holding up a cardboard sign “Will blog for steak” — rather than the more typical “Will work for food”. (NOTE: This could make for an excellent Halloween costume for you unabashed nerds out there!)

But it also got me thinking about what is the right way to approach bloggers to get them to blog about your company/products or a client’s company/products. Something about Raj’s email got me feeling a bit uncomfortable. Thankfully though, Raj followed up later with a clarification email to the list, stating:

I should have said it better. If you receive a “gift” of steaks, all you are promising is that if you like the technology and/or steaks, you would consider providing some visibility to their “We Care” campaign.

I’m glad Raj followed up with that clarification. I think it’s critical when doing blog outreach that you don’t tie compensation to positive coverage.

WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) developed a great set of guidelines — the Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines, which provides some guidance around how to reach out to bloggers. Some good advice there!

So… will you blog for steak?