Jessica Gottlieb wrote:

@ 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.

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!

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!

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

Well done! I would love to know how much revenues you guys generated via click thrus during this, um, debate.

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.

~Trisha

Great points. Loved the Friday Night Live convo on this.
Im relatively new, blogging for less than a year but can already relate to so much of what your talking about.
Thanks for the great convo.

thankyou for listening to the show!

I’ve been blogging for over four years now – which makes me an ‘elder’ in much of the blogging world; having said that – I’ve been doing reviews for several of those four years and NOT ONE of those reviews was paid, NOT ONE of those reviews brought me extra traffic, and NOT ONE of those reviews ‘helped’ me in any way. I know, I read my stats several times a day just like anyone else.
Do any of you realize how little it costs for these companies to give away free product to be reviewed? Do any of you realize that, singularly, we really don’t matter to them at all? Do you know the true compensation for a review done by a professional? We’re not getting our due, and I know this from a professional standpoint.
Do what you’d like – keep doing reviews and giveaways for mere pittance and a few extra hits (pay attention to how much time the reader actually spends on your blog once they click in to check out the review) – once the stack of books and products I have sitting runs out, I’m not caving every time I get an email or phone call from another PR rep wanting my services for nada.
These are BLOGS, not magazines. I don’t know why everyone else started blogging, but my reasons were purely personal, and will continue to be so.
Nobody is asking for everyone to stop forever – just a break for a week – what mom couldn’t use that time to breathe? I think it’s a brilliant idea.

nicely said.