I know we have discussed this before as bloggers, but recently someone was sharing this article in Fashion Incubator and I feel that its outlandish and slightly stuck up. I am absolutely FED UP with designers and small businesses acting like they are the queen B of whatever they do and as bloggers we are inconveniencing them by advertising them. If your answer is no, then its no, I’m not begging you, I’m giving you an opportunity and you can take it or you can leave it.
PSA ANNOUNCEMENT: I don’t run a website to advertise your business for free. I am so completely sick of people thinking that bloggers are just trying to use someone for products and that they do all the work and we do nothing at all. Your product is special to YOU, it doesn’t hold a special place in my heart that I get a hard on to write about it for 2 hours of my life FOR someone I have never met on a product I have never seen. Sure, there are some products I would love to try, but trust me, nothing I write is “free”, it takes a lot of time and my time is worth about $60 an hour. How about as bloggers if we all collectively just asked for $100 to talk about companies on our sites and then, instead of ’samples’, you can send us advertising dollars. That would actually work better for me anyway.
I can’t believe a site that puts out information to the masses would publish something like this when it should be encouraging its designers to find ways to bring their designs to light. And no, I am not a design blog and unless its child related, you will rarely find me mentioning fashion, but holding out for the “big bloggers” to talk about your stuff may mean that you will spend quite a bit of time being unknown.
Is it me or have people with products gone haywire with narcissism. My life doesn’t stop over a pair of shoes-no matter WHAT price tag you put on them.
But what really gets me, after I took the time to go to that site and read it, basically wasting 1.5 minutes of my life, I realized I had already written my feelings on this under another post here therefore I put that opinion up and they EDIT MY RESPONSE where its displayed in a way that makes me look uninformed and I get this email:
You are welcome to disagree but direct attacks are unwelcome. As far as the matter of ignorance is concerned, you failed to address the specificity of the issue of samples -among other matters. While you may be a “successful” wahm hairbow maker, I didn’t last 25+ years in this business being “ignorant” and would suggest it is not within the parameters of your experience to make such an assertion.
Similarly, it was inappropriate for you to post verbatim your previous entry much of which covered old ground when a summary and a link would have sufficed. Publishing duplicate content across websites devalues one’s page ranking and as mine is PR6 and with over 200,000 visitors monthly so I’d like to keep it that way.
I have amended your entry deleting the duplicate content and added a link to your post.”
Is it me or is this the most condescending self absorbed email you have ever seen. Direct attacks? Um, my opinion differing from theirs is not a direct attack. It may not be their opinion and I suppose you can call that an attack if your not on the other side. This email I received is an attack. But this article is hardly an attack, its educational. And how dare she say its inappropriate to post my other words from here. They are MINE, I wrote them, they are perfectly articulated to my feelings and why would I rewrite the same thing over again? My bad I had to bring my cat to the vet to talk about putting her down this morning. Ill try to work harder to create a new post with the same points just for them. They know that they won’t lose page rank over my opinion being in the comments. Covering “OLD” Ground? If it was such old news, why are they writing about it? I am assuming they have read my blog before because its certainly a valid response to many of the points they put out and I would not assume their readers have read my opinion.
Are they screening all the comments for duplicate thoughts out of all their visitors? Dude. I think she just didn’t like what I had to say. I love how she tries to point out that she has a page rank 6 on the site and her visitors monthly to me. Was that her way to say “know your roll”? Is this where I apologize and say I’m sorry I’m just a lowly old mommy blogger?
I think they should have a little more responsibility in putting out 2 sides of the story for the designers they are trying to “help” and if they are going to post something controversial, expect some hard realities and other opinions and let them be known. For the record, I tried to post the link to my site first, but it kept telling me it was under a “Wp-Spam” and would not go through, so instead I added some things onto the previous post I wrote and used that as my response.
Oh, and I apologize that my online business is not GOOD enough to have an experience with blogging and SEO and the “success” of mine you put in quotations. It doesn’t matter what I create from home, this is the “support” they bring from their network? Got it….WAHM and Mom Designers are not actual designers.
If I made dresses I would have more credibility?
Pathetic.
Oh, and correction Kathy…you only have 199,999 visitors now.
~Trisha
The real issue is this: A writer at Vogue is being paid to do her job by the publisher, which is money that stems from advertising revenue. A blogger on the other hand is both the writer and the publisher, and so she perceives the “sample” as fair compensation for promoting the product. When you lay these models side by side, you can see why suddenly the blogger’s opinion seems of less value than the writer’s.
The blogger model is also challenging for small businesses who can’t afford to give away a lot of product, and let’s face it, it can call into question the integrity of the blogger who now seems like she’s doing a review “for the stuff.”
Some bloggers are unscrupulous. It’s a fact. It’s up to those of us who aren’t to set clear guidelines for reviews, samples, and returns, and to let companies know what kind of sales/click/influence/return they can expect to get for their investment. We’re all in this little ecosystem together.
@Laura-Whateverebay: I agree! I was just about to go reply to her snide comment about my comment and say “Hey, aren’t you a blogger too?” LOL This woman is an idiot AND she practically begged all us “Mommy Bloggers” for help with the CPSIA thing. I doubt she will ever get that kind of support from us again!
Yes, you’re definitely right to speak your mind Trisha. I’m pretty sick of all this blogger bashing.
It’s like our time and effort are not even worth anything. Don’t we have to pay for hosting, domain, spend time on networking to generate traffic, do some research in order to produce good write ups and reviews, etc? I don’t supposed that occurred to these people *duh* If I wanted to do everything for FREE, I would rather do it for a charitable cause.
Ignorance is an understatement. If “they” did not check the stats or have the criteria set and agreed upon for the “Reviews” they are as much to blame as the Media failing to perform. How dare they bash on all bloggers? Hmmm, Isn’t she a blogger? I wonder why she does not offer any give-aways.
As for traffic and PR. We all know that PR varies and should not worry to much about. We all know that Momdot.com Alexa ranking is a lot better than hers.
Check the stats at http://website.grader.com
Fashion Incubator Score 81
while Momdot.com Score is 92
For the record, whenever I am approached for affiliate accounts the mention of being a MOM Blogger gets them excited and offering giveaways to boot.
I do not appreciate her post at all. I am behind you 100%, the nerve. One cannot blame others for their mistakes.
I have several online stores, and before I offer an item for a giveaway, I check the bloggers stats and previous giveaways. If the are new or this would be their first giveaway, I go as far as writing the post and leave room for their personal review. I will ship to the item and allow for them to keep and ship directly to the winner the other.
One thing she has managed to do with bashing bloggers is to generate traffic and increase click through.
With the power of social networking, one Tweet of Blogger bashing could take her either way.
Okay, I done, I am off to catch up on email.
You go Trisha!!
Ok, so I haven’t been around in awhile – (sorry- I’ve totally missed you – just have to get my hiney back in gear!) – and while I have no idea who you are talking about, the fact that they would edit your response is appalling! Who on earth would do that? Oh, wait – someone who is just trying to make themselves look better.
MomDot rocks, and continues to be the one blog I always look forward to reading. You give honest product reviews, and I’ve found some FANTASTIC items from places that I never would have heard about otherwise.
To the woman who has the audacity to block or edit comments – I’d like to know who you are, because I’d like to avoid purchasing anything from you. I wouldn’t give you the honor of a link online, simply because you’re an idiot and I wouldn’t want to help your SEO.
Sorry that you’re dealing with this, Trisha. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Wow. This is the SAME lady who, by any means necessary (to include us horrible, big, bad bloggers), wanted to get the message out about the CPSIA, and so we did. Bloggers. And here we are, being bashed, being called freeloaders.
Wow.
I would respond, but I think I’m too pissed to. I’m so sick of the bashing.
You know, they say they want a list of the supposed “freeloading bloggers” – what about the whiny sellers that snub their noses at us and are too good for us to waste our time with? How about that list?
unbecoming. Good grief. She didnt mind sending an unbecoming email.
Trisha,
You might find this funny…she responded to my comment and said she didn’t call any one names or bash “Mommy Bloggers” because it’s “unbecoming”. What an idiot!
Oh, and I got 4 hits on my blog from her site. LOL
OK, weird, but my comment just showed up there.