P.R. Blackout Challenge
Questions And Controversy — By Trisha-admin on July 13, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Mom Bloggers are simply doing too much.
With the allure of giveaways, reviews, and blog trips, Mom Bloggers have turned from what they love the most, their family, into working directly as public relations for their captive audience. It boils down to knowing your worth and then standing up for it.
While we adore many of our fabulous PR reps and treat them like bloggy friends, our site, and many others, are inundated with hundreds, if not thousands, of product requests each year resulting in massive obligations and deadline stress equivalent to what the General Motors CEO must feel every time he drives into work. We watch our blog friends strive for the next big review or the next big giveaway, but all the while practically losing
MomDot is challenging bloggers to participate for one week in August in a PR BLACKOUT challenge where you do not blog ANY giveaways, ANY reviews, and Zero press releases. In fact, we dont want you to talk to PR at ALL that whole week. We want to see your blog naked, raw, and back to basics. Talk about your kids, your marriage, your college, your hopes, your dreams, your house and whatever you can come up with for one week.
We will host a linky during that week for you to link up every post you do. We will also provide some topic suggestions for each day of the week to get your blog blood flowing again.
We feel this is an important challenge to show mom bloggers that what they are doing, the stress they feel, the deadlines, the time away from their family, it has to be worth it. So grab the picture, link to MomDot for PR BLACKOUT week and COMMIT to blogging for YOU and about you for one week this year.
Let us know if you will be participating along side us. We have scheduled it far enough in advance for you to wrap up all your current obligations and look forward to meeting more of our audience, sharing more of our personal selves, and having the TIME to be much more involved with our own community.
~Trisha
Tags: pr blackout challenge
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79 Comments
You might want to take your own advice on that one, Jessica. Your comment is MISSING words.
Jessica Gottlieb wrote:
Welcome to the club!! I hope you enjoy yourself.
Adrienne wrote:
I’m not what you might call a mommy blogger, however I”m a mom and a blogger. I never started a blog intending to journal my family life or kids lives. It wasn’t to PLUG myself either however most of my posts are put up to showcase current product. It was more to show what I was doing with the work I do – BECAUSE I HAVE TO WORK. To some it may feel like I’m plugging, but it’s really just a place for me to journal my progress in business and be consistent with deadlines. If I didn’t have a blog and readership to “report” to, I wouldn’t be able to achieve half the goals I set for work.
I think the PR Challenge is a great suggestion, and if I had advertising on my blog I’d even suggest further to not run any sponsors/advertising that week either to see if traffic stays consistent with “raw” details of my life. YES, I do on occasion blog about what is going on in my life, but as a professional I don’t like to mix business with personal life. I’m going to take the challenge and look forward to seeing what sort of comment I can come up with that isn’t “PR”. Wish me luck!
Kidoinfo has been moving away from doing so many product reviews in general and more towards information, education, ideas. Although we like to share our favorites now and then we also like to talk about what is happening in the community, share cool craft ideas and etc. All these companies need to remember they can always pay for an ad (in our advertising section not the blog) to ensure their product get in front of our devoted targeted group of readers. Thanks for starting this conversation!
I support you Trisha! Some people don’t get it because they don’t want to get it. They’re only in this for the drama and they can all screw themselves. Keep you chin high, you’re doing nothing wrong! You’re supporting your friends and community and we’re all very greatful!
@ Trisha-admin:
Trisha, as a fellow momdot member, I just have to say that I absolutely love the support we get from the Momdot Community. Not just from other bloggers but from you. You don’t treat others like they are worthless. Instead you help them get better! You actually CARE! Thanks for being you!
@ Jessica Gottlieb:
Wow you really don’t get the whole point do you? Apparently, you aren’t the only one either. This has noting to do with hating PR, ignoring them or bashing them. This has to do with getting back to our roots as bloggers. Blogging is supposed to be about us, our families, our communities, our lives. Instead everyone has wrapped themselves up so much in promoting products, drawing new traffic, competing with other bloggers, defending themselves against nasty bloggers who have nothing else better to do than trash other bloggers that we have forgotten why they got into blogging in the first place.
This campaign (designed for the MomDot community bloggers not the entire blogosphere) is suppose to help bloggers go back to what they started their blog for in the first place so that they don’t lose themselves in the competition of blogging.
Yes, bloggers take on too much responsibility from PR.
Yes they should say “NO” more than they do, if at all.
However, people don’t. If they did there wouldn’t be so much blogger burnout going around in the first place. This campaign is simply designed to help bloggers realize that it is o.k. to say “NO” when you can’t handle any more or if you need a break. If we do it together we can support each other and get to know each other better by taking all of that extra time to write about ourselves and read others blogs.
@ Jessica Gottlieb:
Listen, this isn’t a moment I wanted or asked for. It was intended for OUR community. If anyone had listened to our BTR show, they would have known that when I even said, this is something we should do for the bloggers that hang out on our forum, with the exception of the review bloggers.
Had I known it was going to be a hot button, I would have cleaned the place up more.
I personally don’t say yes to everything, you can pretty much look around and see that we try to keep contests/reviews completely separate from our regular posting. And anything I do let be posted is generally written by other bloggers. I may receive one product a month at that.
This challenge had nothing to do with MomDot as a blog. It had to do with the women that were talking about burnout on our forum and then on our radio show. It was to them we created this for. And while I personally feel pressure, its not always from PR, its from a variety of online sources.
Our intent was to support the women that do take the time to respond to the 500+ press releases on their site and let them know its ok to step back and not be involved in them anymore. To take a break. Unfortunately, there are women that say yes to everything. Its those women that reached out to us and we supported them by providing a place to talk about it.
I am becoming an unwilling participate as a poster child in something that was not my original intention. Additionally, our thoughts were content blogging for bloggers that wanted to participate for a WEEK as a fun way to blog hop. It was some permanent everyone hates PR hullabaloo. Although, at this point I am in support of bloggers stopping the commercialization of online blogging and truly think that if its this big of a deal, then maybe it *has* gone too far.
I blog daily on my life and have done thousands and thousands of posts that have zero to do with PR.
And for the record, I don’t pay attention to grammar or spelling. I could care less. Its one thing I don’t really care about and those that know me just understand that about who I am. I am not a journalist, I am not a writer, I simply own a site and put up feelings about things or talk about my family from time to time. In my world, your vs you’re doesn’t matter, spelling out or writing out numbers makes no difference. I am lazy and don’t care.
For the record, the “ads” on the site were donated space by myself and the money made went to support 4 bloggers with BlogHer scholarships this year.
I am happy with my little site and I am happy for the things we accomplish, regardless of how small they may seem on the outside or unimportant they are to someone else. I have a small place on the web and get to talk about what I want from time to time and its not a bad gig for someone with nothing to do during the day.
Thanks for your comment and take care,
~Trisha
hi, i’m part of the “pr machine” you bloggers love/hate. i wanted to say a few things:
1 – for the brands i represent, you “mom bloggers” have actually been a very valuable and much appreciated forum for us to promote the products, via your reviews and give-aways. obviously having our products featured in a national print magazine is fantastic, but we understand how large and active this community is, and how much you each value one another’s opinions, so having real women test and review our products is often more important to us than one little mention or credit in a magazine.
2 – i am inundated daily with dozens of requests from blogs i haven’t heard of yet (so many new ones pop up every day!), and i actually take the time to vet each one before replying or sending product. its very obvious to me which bloggers actually take the time to consider the products they are reviewing and promoting to make sure they are in line with their values and the integrity of the blog, and which ones are simply in it for the free loot. i have to protect my clients’ image and branding, so its imperative that i only work with bloggers who clearly demonstrate a sincere interest in the products and agree to write an honest, thoughtful review (i’ve even asked one blogger to include some slightly negative thoughts she had about one product because i felt her points were valid and should be shared with your community).
3 – this is a direct reply to Anne: i don’t know about some of the big giant corporate companies you may work with, but it is quite costly for my clients to send you products to review. not only are we covering the cost of the product, often 2 sets as you use one to test and one to give away, but also the shipping to you and to the contest winner. trust me, it adds up quickly! just this month alone i’ve already sent out $1500 wholesale (so approx $3300 retail) worth of merchandise, plus the cost of shipping, plus whatever i will be sending to contest winners (and the shipping for that!). and i’m not finished, i have 3 requests on my desk and we still have 10 days left this month!
i just want to reiterate that my clients do appreciate and value the mom blogging community, and even if you do take a one-week break from us, we will be more than happy to pick up again after the hiatus and continue the great relationships we have built. thank you so much for letting me comment!
so interesting. I actually staged my own last week. sad part? I had reviews and items scheduled so I just didn’t post anything.
I am not sure if I can do it again in August, I am so far behind now, but I will try! maybe last week of aug.
You gals are getting known! I found this blog via mediabistro. Great challenge! Back to basics is always a good idea.
@ Trisha-admin: Enjoy your moment. Today there are 536 press releases that sitting in my inbox. I won’t read most of them, and I won’t be overwhelmed.
Just stop being the girl that says yes to everything and try blogging. You might like it. And for the love of Gawd, please edit for basic grammar and spelling.
Serena wrote:
Since you asked, i went and checked…a whopping $16, half of which is ‘normal’ for our site as it is…so that would be $8? I may go to Tahiti and buy that Lexus now.
Well done! I would love to know how much revenues you guys generated via click thrus during this, um, debate.
@ Michelle Smiles:
Then your lucky enough to not experience what hundreds of other bloggers are going through and simply this ‘challenge’ is not for you. It was set up for the MomDot community as it is, not the entire blogosphere, so we are reacting via our own communities complaints and stresses.
~Trisha
Complicated Mama wrote:
thankyou for listening to the show!
Anne wrote:
nicely said.
What’s interesting is how it’s changing some of the dynamic in the market. Because so many are willing to give up their time, content, etc. for attention and free product, it’s been said that a lot of brands are going to small and independent content companies online and telling them they do not see why they should spend money when the blogs are willing to do far more for acknowledgement and/or free stuff.
The PR people can always go elsewhere and look for different bloggers.