Blogger Scores 7K for Unique Sponsorship

Who says blogging isn’t profitable? Joel Cheesman, author of Cheezhead, a blog focusing on SEO, HR and job recruitment issues, has just scored over $7,000 through an eBay auction for an exclusive sponsorship of his attendance of an upcoming industry event. Bids started at just 99 cents. The winning bidder will be announced Monday.

Here’s the deal: The consultant will attend the annual Society for Human Resource Management conference later this month where he’ll don a T-shirt promoting the sponsor. The sponsor will also get the following stuff:

• Company mention on every podcast
• 125 X 125 banner ad that will rotate on Cheezhead for a total of 15,000 impressions ($500 value alone)
• Recognition in every SHRM-related blog post
• Blog entry dedicated to sponsorship
• Highlight in e-mails to supporters, over 500, leading up to the conference
• SEO-friendly text link on the lefthand side of my blog for an entire year
• Permanent, SEO-friendly text link on lexiqon
• A copy of his e-bookUsing Alexa charts on the auction page, Cheesman demonstrates how his site compares to other popular sites in the recruiting industry (including Recruiting.com, which just got snapped up by Jobster). He’s definitely garnering some decent traffic.

  Call it foolhardy (on the part of the sponsor). Or call it the natural maturation of the blogosphere from inconsequential geek haven to genuinely significant media space. Either way, I’m sure we’ll see more of this sort of thing. The question is, will Cheesman manage such a feat in the future, or is this a one-shot novelty?