Are you writing or are you selling?

Mommy bloggers everywhere are angry (GRR!). And no, this time, it’s not about ME. Since this is a post that I will be posting both on my company blog and my personal blog, I will lay out some details. If you already heard it then skip to the next paragraph. Mommy blogging is the ‘in’ thing to do at the moment, and lots of women have taken to the internet to post on their take on parenting, mommy issues, moral dilemmas, days without showers, and so on. I also blog, but I vehemently eschew the mommy blogger moniker for various reasons. A couple of weeks ago a blogging community PR company held an event called ‘Bloggy Bootcamp’  (YES, someone did make up that AWFUL name) in Baltimore. I signed up to go, and though (in the end) it wasn’t my cup of tea, I enjoyed meeting many women who I have interacted with online, either through blog comment sections or on twitter.

At the conference there were some things said that just struck me as all wrong. One- being a mom is hip and trendy right now. Yeah, cause that’s why I have kids- to be trendy. Two- Know your worth. If you are a Stay at home mom, your worth to your family is truly immeasurable, but to companies, mommy bloggers are a dime a dozen. And so on. Again, not my cup of tea, but hey, I get what they are trying to say.

The other portion of this story is that there was a freelance writer doing a piece on mommy blogging for the New York Times. The conference organizer and speakers were understandably excited, press is a good thing, especially at an event costing anywhere between 80-100 bucks per person.The writer spent the day at the conference interviewing bloggers and taking pictures. Then the article came out. The tone of the piece was snarky and condescending, and while a good portion of the ire online is aimed at the writer, women online are in a Battle Royale over the meaning of this article.

I tend to side with the article writer (DESPITE HER AWFUL SHOES) for one reason and one reason only, the amount of giveaways that companies sponsor on the blogs. When you take money for a company to blog about their product, don’t come and complain when you have lost credibility with your readers or your fellow bloggers. One commenter said it was fashionable to beat up on mommy bloggers; maybe it is, and maybe some of it is deserved.

I write four blogs, but the one that I represent when I go to gatherings like these, is my personal blog. And while the talk on the SEO optimization was great, advice on how to get money and promotions out of company made me feel like I was in a gathering of Tupperware reps. I don’t engage with these companies for several reasons 1) As a government contractor, you never know what is a conflict of interest, so it’s best just steer clear altogether, 2) I won’t have my opinion held hostage by a contractual obligation. Example, say I take product to give away but later find that the company I took money from is polluting a river in a small town in Indiana. I want to be able to write really terrible things about that company without having to worry about what it will do to a ‘business’ relationship, and 3) I want to be taken serious as a blogger, having a blog full of giveaways doesn’t allow this (serious BITCH, that is).

So it’s at this point that I would like to put in my requisite disclaimer. I have met some wonderful writers, who just happen to be moms, through these events. I have even met some great mommy bloggers who run event services on the side. Make no mistake that these women are rock stars, and I enjoy being in their group. This is not about them, per se. It’s about all bloggers, and at what point do you stop being a sincere writer and start being a unpaid corporate shill?

One last caveat, I know a couple of bloggers that run review sites. They take products from companies and then post reviews about those products. What makes this different, that is the intent of the blog, to write reviews about products (similar to one of my favorite blogs- Engadget), so again not really in this category.

I am not trying to say that mommy blogging is not credible or that you shouldn’t have sponsors (SHOULD FERRARI WANT TO SPONSOR ME, I AM AVAILABLE). One of my favorite bloggers has a sponsor and does hilarious posts about their products (looking at you marymac). All I am saying, is that you should call a spade a spade, and whether you are trying to sell me Tupperware or Pampered Chef or whether you are blogging about a product for Kraft foods, you are a salesman- not a blogger.

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  • http://www.pajamasandcoffee.com/ @marymac

    i just couldn't resist- they had me at 'vibrating rubber ducky.' ;)

  • alfredliveshere

    Interesting – I am not a mommy, and therefore not a mommy blogger, and as I find them, some are fantastic, and some arent, like other kinds of blogs. And newspapers, and magazines. No one has offered to sponsor me yet, and would be useless on mommy stuff… I am holding out for Acura or Porsche to come a calling….

  • http://creative.spayce.com pixielation

    I think that the biggest problem with the whole thing is trying to suggest that blogging is one great big industry. Because it's not really. If you had to pay for every blog that you read, in the way that you have to buy magazines, then it would be more correctly labelled. But because you can blog for free, and you can read blogs for free, it opens up a far more broad variety of reasons for blogging.

    It's not an industry as much as a method of communication.

    Now, the bloggers who have sponsorship deals and make money from their blogs – YES, they do start to cohesively form an industry that is rather loosely defined.

    But the huge majority of people who start a blog are not making money from it. And I think that if they weren't having a lot of messages about monetising their blog, then they'd not consider it as a method for raising cash.

    I don't blog to make money. I don't plan to ever stick a google ads panel on my blog. I think I earned about $3 from google years ago when I stuck it on a very successful website that I own. It didn't seem worth it. The site was provided as a free resource for people, and it was hosted on the same server as my portfolio and main website. So it didn't need to pay for itself, and therefore I didn't need to put ads on it.

    But since you can stick ads on any single website – the idea of monetising your blog isn't really a concept that is unique to blogging.

    Sponsorship, and defining a “brand” is probably far more unique to the new world of bloggers who have a voice and a large following.

    I just don't think that you can force that to happen, and I hate the idea of personal brands. I used to work in advertising. It's such a false front full of silly catch phrases.

    Writers don't have brands. They have a tone of voice. They have a style. People read them because they love the style of their writing and the stories that they have to tell. A writer needs to find the consistent style and tone in their books, or their initial readers will start to fall away as the writing changes. Or – they'll attract new readers as their style matures.

    Perhaps my viewpoint is because I want to be a writer, and not a brand. I don't want to be reverred for my review of pull up pants and potties, but for my wonderful landscapes and characters in my book(s). And maybe others DO want to be seen as the foremost authority on plastic sippy cups and baby backpacks.

    I do have to say thought – if someone can slip in a review about a vibrating rubber ducky and manage to get me snorting with laughter while I read it – that's an incredibly talented writer! But Mary's blog isn't littered with reviews – it's all honest and natural and funny.

    I read a few blogs in my rss reader where I skip over about 5 posts because they are all reviews, then read the only non review post on there. And it generally disappoints, so eventually that blog gets dropped off my reader.

    Time for me to stop rambling on.

  • amydpp

    I agree that writers aren't brands, I think that sums it up nicely. I also think monetizing your blog is different than the giveaways and the swag. Running ads, is perfectly acceptable, and since they are usually random ads generated by an ad service, you relationship is with them not with the actual companies.

    And I absolutely agree about MaryMac's reviews and sponsorship. It is well done and unobtrusive to the reading experience.

    I also do reviews (My Bucket of Awesome) but these are things I like and want to share. I NEVER contact the company (or any company) and tell them that I am going to talk about them.

    I mean in the end do what you want, but you can't be both a corporate shill and a writer, that's my bottom line. You can still partner with companies for lots of things, but engage your readers through your writing not your giveaways- or your 'brand'.

  • Brandi_B

    I'm one of those bloggers that does mainly reviews and giveaways, but I also write about my family when I feel like it. I started out 3 years ago just blogging about my family and for the past year I have been mainly reviews. I took alot away from Baltimore, as I was there for learning about SEO and FTC stuff. But I also had the chance to meet some incredible ladies. I don't agree with the article at all. Yes, she had some good points, but making us all look like we were not taking care of our kids and too busy online to teach our kids important stuff, is just ridiculous.

    As for the “know your worth” it wasn't as a mom or family person that we are suppose to know our worth, it is our worth online. How to make some money to help with bills and Christmas. I am sorry you were disappointed in Baltimore Bloggy Bootcamp, but I do have one question for you. Why go to these conferences if you are not interested in learning about marketing? Yes it was about meeting bloggers as well, but it was promoted and everyone knew, it was for learning how to build your blog in marketing.

  • http://www.ooph.com/ Stefanie

    I don't do paid advertising or accept free products as payment for blogging a review. Not because I judge it. I simply don't want to do it. Blogging for me is a chance to do something that I need to do every day to survive. Writing is my oxygen.

    I feel like there should be a way to separate the two things. For example if you are a blogger that does both reviews and writing perhaps have a homepage that is simply two icons. One for your reviews and giveaways and one for the stories you write. Or you could label them with icons so we know in advance if it is a paid review. Or as MaryMac does, differentiate it by a name, Hump Day, and make it the same day every week. Then, as a reader, I can go to what interests me and not deal with the rest. Some are interested in the reviews and giveaways and have no desire to hear about our “interesting” daily lives and others, because they are drunk, seem only interested in our daily lives.

    I understand the need to make money as a blogger. I am one of those people. I put ads on my blog and will do what I need to as a writer to monetize my blog from an advertising perspective. I don't begrudge anyone trying to make a dime for their family. In fact. I encourage it.

    Ultimately the term “Mommy Blogger” is going to need to be subdivided. There are many different categories that fall within that ambiguous term.

  • http://creative.spayce.com pixielation

    Many bloggers do that (separate their reviews from their blog material), and I like it that way. I find it more professional and straight forward. It lets me choose my avenue in that blog, and it actually gives the reviews more creedence.

    I certainly don't begrudge anyone making money from a blog. I don't see anything wrong with writing a blog for a living – whether it's on a salary, or via advertising.

    What I do object to a little is the shoehorning of all activities that involve the word blogging, and also the word mommy/mummy being called an industry. According to Technorati, there is only a very small percentage of people whose sole (and substantial) income is from blogging, and a larger – but still small – percentage of people for whom the blogging brings in the primary income.

    So many people do it as a hobby. And so many of those people are part of a wider community of blogs that is very much a social community.

    Every blog is not a business commodity, and as such, most blog written by “mummy bloggers” fall within the mummy blogger category because of the subject matter. There are people who are mothers, and also blog, but are not found within this category because their subject matter is not the day to day events that their family are immersed in.

    And if you're writing about parenting, kids and lifestyles – is it such a surprise that the genre is considering more about style than business? Even if some people writing the blogs in that genre are financially successful because of them?

    I didn't think the article was that bad. I thought it had a sensationalistic headline that it then tried to turn around – but didn't quite manage to do that as well as it possibly meant to. I thought the image that went with it was unkind and didn't illustrate well what the message should have been. I suspect that the writer was edited and that some of the control went right out of her hands – because that's what paper's do.

    I understand why people are annoyed at the article, but I think many of them are annoyed at the wrong things, and others are simply going overboard ever so slightly.

    I did reply over at mom-101.com, but my reply never showed up (probably a mistake on my behalf, I don't think for one moment that it was removed!)

    I've started writing a reply that's got so long that I might even make it a blog post. But having thought of doing that, I now have to do more research on a few of the points I am making, and then edit my own words to ensure that they are clear and well written. Otherwise my point is kind of lost!

    But my overall summation was that I think writers have a voice – a style – not a brand. Marketeers have a brand. There is nothing wrong with making money from writing, but if your aim is only to get brand sponsorship and make money from reviews then it's a different role you're playing.

  • amydpp

    I agree with every point you've made here. I don't begrudge ANYONE the right to make money however they see fit, but I think that the type of blogging where there is always a sponsorship or giveaway is a DIFFERENT kind of blogging and should be tagged as such.

  • amydpp

    I want to market my blog, but as a blog, not as platform for companies to giveaway things. I go to lots of kind of conferences, and one thing I've learned, is that you never know what you will get out of it until you get there. If I like I go back, if I don't then I don't.
    As I stated, just because it wasn't for me, doesn't mean it doesn't have value for someone. I am looking for a different direction.
    And I did not, in any sense, get that the writer was saying that bloggers weren't taking care of the our kids (yes, the graphic implied that, but come one, are we that insecure about our parenting that a graphic is going to make us crumble?).
    And last, if you are one of those bloggers that does mainly review and giveaways, it's time to face a fact. That is where is your traffic comes from, very few of your 'readers' are coming for your writing. I am not saying that your writing is bad, but the person who goes to blogs to enter giveaways is a very different person than a dedicated reader.
    (Please don't interpret this to mean that I will never to sponsors or giveaways, just that it will be a VERY small portion of what I do, and will have to advance my blog as writing instrument, not as selling mechanism.)
    I appreciate that you stopped by to give your opinion though, you're always welcome.

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