Mommy Blogs, Marketing, and Integrity

Do you remember? Do you remember a time when people would ask, what’s a blog? And it was explained that they were “web logs” and really just, like, a public diary or a notebook on a certain theme. I wondered, back then, why people kept blogs. Often, it was a good way to keep far-flung friends and family in the loop. Communities sprung up around blogs, too, and people began to connect over shared interests and experiences. Okay, I guess I can see that, I thought, but it still sounds like a whole lot of work.

That’s probably because I’ve always viewed writing as a skill, a talent, a means of communicating real thought and ideas, and a sell-able commodity or service. I’ve never used writing for therapeutic purposes or kept a personal journal (for more than a week at a time). I’m a crummy pen pal, too. I get hung up is my problem. I notice syntax and worry about sounding cliched and write slowly and deliberately. It was after the birth of my first baby, when I thought I might like to pitch some story ideas to parenting magazines and realized that every person with a kid and an english degree had the same idea, that my husband first suggested I start a blog. What the? Huh? Why would I want to do that? Blogs don’t pay.

Remember? Remember when blogs were vehicles for writing and the assumption was that they didn’t pay? It’s true. Now, even though most blogs still don’t pay, many people, many moms especially, think that maybe they’d like to make a little money on the side. Maybe they should start a blog. Lots of these moms don’t even care about the writing part, or the community part, either. They write stories about their kids and market products to other moms. There are marketing companies that will pay you to write posts that promote their clients  and others that will give away all kinds of free stuff.

And the other, the original, sorts of mom bloggers don’t like it one bit. Sure, everyone admits, you have the right to do whatever the hell you want with your blog. But when you pretend to be like us, they argue, and draw readers into your discussions and then, whammo, you’re just a big commercial, you SELL OUT everybody. Because the broader media, the average reader, cannot always tell the difference. These mommy bloggers, they sneer, are frivolous women out to score free stuff. This really stings for certain types of bloggers-who-also-happens-to-be-somebody’s-mother because they had been writing and banding together to show that women, mothers, really were influential. They wrote about breastfeeding rights and toxic chemicals, maternity benefits and child care. They wrote about politics, big and small, and they told stories, and they were starting to be heard. And now the marketers have co-opted the form and women, mothers, are eager to let them. Women, mothers, are undoing everything they had achieved.

Mom 101 eloquently expresses the concerns of what she terms “parenting bloggers” as opposed to mommy bloggers in a recent post. While mom bloggers have never exactly been one happy camp to begin with,  she says, “we never questioned each other’s authenticity. . . Now no one can mention a trip to the zoo or a great movie without someone questioning whether it’s been sponsored. Gosh, that’s more than sad, it’s tragic. What do we have if not our integrity?” And Lindsay Ferrier of Suburban Turmoil has a great post explaining why, as a reader of mommy blogs, she feels deceived by personal-sounding posts that turn out to be product reviews. She suggests bloggers keep a seperate review blog to make things crystal clear for readers.

There are plenty of responces out there in the blogosphere, too, about how mommy bloggers should be able to use their blog to earn a bit of extra money and how, exactly, they should go about it. What’s interesting is that every “how to monetize your blog” post always highlights that you should love your topic and be true to yourself. The sad truth is that marketers need to keep the lines between sponsored content and genuine content blurred. They want real moms who are true to themselves, but they want them to shill for their companies, too. Yes, a pure review blog makes sense for an established blogger with a dedicated following, but I wonder if PR people would really be interested in a review blog written by an anonymous mom. These marketing tactics are the tupperware parties of our day, and we’re still sorting out how to respond to them.

This brings me back to Mom 101’s point about integrity. I did start a blog, afterall, you see. And very, very slowly started to find my voice and the sorts of things I want to write about. I didn’t have a clear vision from the get go, thinking I might want to throw political analysis, personal confessions, and cookie recipes all together in the same blog. I eventually scrapped the recipe idea (who has time to learn to bake cookies?) and my occasional advice column (who the hell am I, anyway?), but have kept most of the other stuff. I like to talk about Issues, and I think they are important. I also like to commiserate about my failures and brag about my kids despite those failures. I do want to earn a bit of money with this, though, I’ll admit. I mean, as I said at the start, it’s work. I want to be paid for my writing and my ideas, though, not for glorified ad copy posing as my opinion in the form of sponsored posts. So I’ll sell ad space and hope my blog will promote my services as a writer.

But I do reviews, too. I do. I like to recommend a product that I really love and people who trust me like to read those reviews, too. I also know that people will search for products and that reviews might help drive more traffic to my site. And they might help me sell more ad space, too. It’s the same reason magazines do product reviews; they help to subsidize the rest of the content, the real raison d’etre of this blog. So far I have only reviewed things that I have purchased myself or were given to me as gifts from real friends and family.  I will accept products for review from PR folks, but I will not promise them anything. If I don’t like something, I will not review it (unless I really don’t like it, in which case I might give it a negative review). I won’t do sponsored posts and I promise full disclosure. All my reviews are in the Straight Goods category, and I will label them up front.

Last, I ask my readers to keep me in line, too. If you wonder if I’m skirting too close to an ethical boundary, call me out on it. Integrity is important. And, don’t worry, I’ll keep reviewing great things no matter how I get them, and celebrating the fun, free stuff there is to do with your children. Like picnics and day trips and the race track (as long as you can keep from gambling).

As for the rest of them, it makes the blogs whose voices you know you can trust all the more valuable. Thank goodness they are still here.

(Image courtesy of jspatchwork at Flickr.)