The Mode Media Wake Up Call

Talk about a huge shakeup in the blogger world. News broke late last week that Mode Media, once valued at more than $1 billion, was shutting down. While details are scarce, left in its wake are 12,000 bloggers owed thousands upon thousands of dollars. Not to mention, brands that were left with campaigns they were no longer able to run. In fact, we confirmed by one agency that Mode Media shut down its employee's emails, disconnected phones, and took away laptops, leaving no way for clients to reach their rep.

Using the hashtag #ModeOwesBloggers, many are coming forward sharing their stories. There's even a Facebook support group created by a blogger who is owed more than $70k.

All in all, it's an extremely troubling case and a wake up call for whole industry.

The truth is bloggers are highly influential, and drive real business. Mode Media knew that. The advertisers and brands that worked with them also knew that. But the challenge was Mode Media's business model which although bringing in $100M in revenues, failed to keep up with the shifts in the digital landscape. Not to mention their exclusivity requirements and more importantly their role as a gatekeeper, taking the control and transparency away from the actual content owners.

It's time for change. At Snips, we let bloggers and brands work directly across any channel you'd like — websites, social, email, mobile and more. We're the engine that makes it easy to publish, track, and measure. But you, the blogger, own your own content, run the campaigns, manage the timing and execution of your campaigns, and how you structure the business relationship.

Need some help in getting started? No problem. We're there for you too, bringing brand opportunities and great tools to help you better engage your audiences, measure engagement with real-time analytics, and monetize your social footprint.

Cut out the middleman, and get started today with your next influencer campaign on Snips.