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MomDot and others guilty of Mum blogging hypocrisy? @joelcere and others think they might be.

Posted on 04. Aug, 2009 by Andrew in Blogging

It’s not been the best of times recently for the mighty force of stay at home mother bloggers. The collective influence of mothers is incredible and through social media – blogs, twitter – we’re only just beginning to see it harnessed.

We’re also only just beginning to see where the pettiness and squabbles might be too. The recent BlogHer 09 conference was, on some levels, a great success but there is a whole avalanche of reports of unpleasantness too.

Let’s take @GeorgeGSmithJr’s personal account. It begins with;

Someone tried to blackmail me at BlogHer.

The story is simple. George is from the brand side – from Crocs. The demand for free stuff; goodies; swag at the event was incredible. That explains why George was subjected to dialogue that went like this;

“Ya know, if you don’t give me shoes – I could totally write something bad about you on my blog.”

“Excuse me?” I asked – hoping she would laugh or give me some indication that she was just joking around. Nope…

“It’s just a pair of shoes. It’s a lot easier to give them to me than deal with the negative press I could make.”

The issue of swag was certainly front of mind for many people at the conference. Indeed it seems people thought about it after the event too. Let’s pay some attention to the insights of CV Harquail who was at the event. Here are a few of the observations;

• Efforts to acquire swag changed the participation patterns of many attendees. People went to exhibits instead of community keynotes to get the Walmart cookies or the Disney Ice Creams (which were, btw, very tasty).
• The minute it was announced that the swag was being distributed, the whole physical shape of the room would change, from clusters of women talking to a line of women waiting.
• People went to and stayed at parties only until the swag bags were handed out.

Patrico Robles has a typically good write up of the BlogHer swag issues over at Econsultancy if you’re in the mood for more stories like this.

It’s good to see that the problem is being recognised. Swag is particularly important in mom blogging as a typical engagement is to deliver a freebie review product to the blogger and wait to see whether or not the review comes forth as hoped for or not (and with the issues of disclaimers, disclosures and ethics dealt with to everyone’s satisfaction).

Some of the thought leaders are trying to address the issue. MomDot has challenged bloggers to do a PR Blackout. For a week (just one week in August) MomDot is encouraging mother bloggers not to do any giveaways, reviews and absolutely no press releases. Instead mom bloggers will have to concentrate on original material.

There’s a twist, of course. It’s that twist in the tale that Joel Cere has picked up on. A call for a blackout? Hmm. That in itself is a publicity move. Joel Cere also points out that MomDot looks more like a commercial venture than a blog network.

Whereas Joel says he can’t support the initiative because it looks hypocritical there are others who’ll appreciate any chance to try and put some safety barriers in place around the growing mummy blogger community or even a pause for reflection.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. The FTC and illegal social media campaigns

Tags: blogher, ethics, momdot, swag