Last Saturday I spoke on the Family Matters Panel at Northern Voice, along with 5 other fabulous women – Danielle, Manda, Harriet, Lesley and Kerry. If you want to read more about panel, you can check out Blogging the Parenthood Experience and “Family Matters: Blogging the Parenting Experience”.
I thought that the panel went well. The downside was that with 6 panelists and only 45 minutes, we didn’t get to explore the issues as deeply as I would have liked. One of the topics that we didn’t really get to cover fully was the relationship between public relations professionals and bloggers, and mombloggers in particular.
When I started blogging I kept to myself. I didn’t hear from anyone, and certainly not from PR folks pitching me ideas. Why would I have? They weren’t interested in me, I had no readers. This is how things were on this blog for the first 5 1/2 years. And it’s how I wanted them to be.
Look, it’s my name!
Things changed when I decided that I needed a maternity leave project when my 2nd child Jacob was small. I started commenting on other blogs and writing more regularly here. My goal was not to make a fortune or to win the notice of PR firms. My goal was to connect with like-minded moms, hone my writing and give my time at home some structure. Blogging was something I did for myself, at a time when nearly every part of my life was about my family.
As my blog grew, I started receiving emails from folks pitching me ideas and offering me freebies. The first offer I received wasn’t a good fit and I felt tremendously guilty about that. Someone got in touch with me, said that he liked me and wanted to work with me. It was tremendously flattering. I hadn’t really known to expect this, and no one told me how to handle it. I am an engineer, for Pete’s sake. Engineers just don’t get asked to talk about snack food or cleaning products.
Wearing my super-cool Northern Voice conference T-shirt
Like a lot of bloggers, I don’t come from a professional journalism or writing background. This means I have had to figure out how a lot of this works on my own. These days, if I get a pitch that isn’t a good fit I am comfortable with politely declining. That’s what I do with the vast, vast majority of the pitches I receive. I view my relationship with you fabulous people as one of trust, and I don’t want to waste your time, or tick you all off, or compromise my own principles. I occasionally blog about cool stuff I love, and usually it’s something I bought with my own money. That’s my comfort level, which I have defined for myself.
We can’t expect bloggers to just know how to interact with the marketing world if we don’t tell them. But it’s something we would all benefit from knowing more about. For me blogging is not about the PR or the free stuff, and I don’t want it to be. For me blogging is about community and writing and sharing ideas. But all the same, I find myself fielding these inquiries and answering these emails.
All the bloggy folk catching the keynote
I do think that bloggers and their platforms deserve respect. Like many bloggers, I have experienced some behaviour that feels less-than-respectful. I’m asked to be a brand ambassador for free, but the idea of paying for ad space is dismissed. On a few occasions I have had nasty replies when I’ve declined an offer. Some PR folks claim to be ardent readers but compliment me on my 5-year-old ‘son’ when I have a 5-year-old daughter. And some ask me to write about events I can’t attend because they’re 3000 miles away. I don’t fault someone for reaching out, but take a minute to read my ‘All About Me’ page to see if I’m a good fit, first.
I created this blog through hard work. And make no mistake, it represents a lot of my time and emotional capital. I am so proud of this space, and I am so pleased when people come to visit. I am not going to hand over the keys to just anyone. That doesn’t mean that I expect to only get pitches I love. I’m cool if we’re not a good fit, or if we respectfully disagree, or what-have-you. Really. I just want my worth and, most importantly, my readers’ worth to be recognized.
Catching one of the sessions
So, what’s the answer? I think that we need to better equip bloggers to understand the PR machine, so that they can navigate it themselves. And I think that we need to all be professional. We don’t all have to have the same blogging goals, and we don’t all have to follow the same conventions. But we can all play nice, and treat each other well.
Reading through this post, I see why we couldn’t get into this on the panel. There is just not enough time in the world when I get going. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said, though. Mombloggers are not all the same. But regardless of how we blog, we all deserve respect. And the platforms we have built on our own, without a road map, should be valued.
Do you blog? Have you been approached by PR folks? How do you feel about the way that marketers and bloggers interact? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
