BlogHer - Just Business - Comments

Just so you know, Dana

Liz Thompson — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:37:29 -0500

I average about 80 readers a day - very thankful to have them, too - but, I certainly feel the same way you do about many opportunities that have passed me by, too.

I still don't understand how (or, why) I got invited.

Of course, I'm all over the fact that you'll be able to stay at our house next week!

Not to mention, hanging with you at BlogHer!

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This Full House
This Full House Reviews
Imperfect Parent

Thank you, Sara

HeatherB — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:54:17 -0500

That comment really means a lot and I appreciate that greatly. I tired. It's not perfect but I wanted to try because I am not directly involved and I don't have children so I wanted to be as objective as possible. Hopefully I was.

Heather B. Personal Blog: No Pasa Nada BlogHer CE: Business, Career & Personal Finance

one more thing

sarafisher — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:34:23 -0500

I forgot to add here, that I too, have learned a lot from these recent blog controversies and how I would handle myself in the future should I get involved again. I can always heed the lesson, "think before you act!"

taking the time to think before we post

sarafisher — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:22:06 -0500

Heather, I'm not a frequent reader, but when I saw that the conversation on this topic was continuing here, I had to click on. I know I'm late to the party, but I was personally involved in the Disney mess and was invited to the J&J event as well. (Full disclousre: J&J was a client of mine at my old PR job for years.) I cannot go to either event, but I hope everyone who attends has a great time and can enjoy the laborious efforts of those coordinating events, because well, event planning is never fun.

Anyway, back to my point. What I really love about this blog post is that you took the time to analyze the situation before you came up with a response and opinion on it. When the news of the Disney mess came to light, I felt that everyone pounced on it immediately without thinking about the genesis of the situation. While the J&J situation was a little more cut and dry, I think it's easy to go and point fingers at Corporate America for not doing it the way we would like it done. I think we have a point, but it's been said here, bloggers don't necessarily know how to accept PR and marketing outreach and companies don't necessarily know how to reach them.

I'm sorry I won't be able to hear productive thoughts and solutions to all this at Blog Her Business, but I will look forward to reading the recaps from all the way-smarter-than-me people out there who have done a lot of thinking on this. What I hope is that as bloggers we can try to reach some middle ground between making ourselves and not being totally reactive/ defensive to those trying to reach us and please us the only way they know how. I know it's about education, but I'm not sure snarky and pointing fingers is the way to educate.

taking the time to think before we post

sarafisher — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:22:05 -0500

Can't resist.

Rita Arens — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:08:07 -0500

I ambled on over here from Mom-101, and what a fascinating conversation!

First, I do think some companies are realizing they need to reach out to more than just the top-tier bloggers. Also, who is a top-tier blogger? I was on a focus group conference call yesterday for a parenting widget with bloggers who have far more traffic than I do and bloggers who have less. We actually even commented about the need to get opinions from one and all and our hatred of anything that smacks of "rating" or "popularity contest" from Corporate America. Also, I don't have a ton of traffic in comparision to a lot of mommybloggers, and it's interesting to me that nobody ever asks me how much traffic I have before asking me to the J&J conference (I'm not going - I'm going to BlogHer Business) or this focus group affair.

As someone in business, I do think blogger outreach programs are doing what any marketer or publicist does: They are looking for opinion leaders. That can come from traffic, or that can come from real estate -- if you have a spot on a popular ad network or post regularly to BlogHer or something of that nature, you're probably more likely to be approached. There is a perception, probably accurate, that you will a) talk about this thing and b) link around a bunch and spread the word. I do think if you want to be more actively involved in Corporate America as a blogger, mommy or otherwise, you have to understand the game from their perspective: they want ink in prominent places. It doesn't mean you have to have 1500 readers a day, it means you have to be likely to post (no getting the product then never getting around to writing about it - the windows on campaigns are tight and usually correspond to a product launch or appropriate season or holiday - and you have to be likely to post in a public forum that will get traffic, even if it's not your main blog.

I agree with Kristen that a review blog is a great way to get around ad network guidelines or personal editorial/advertorial issues. I remember Liz Gumbinner said last year at BlogHer that you're not just the editor of your blog, you're the publisher, too. I really took that to heart and immediately went home and really thought hard about the groups I support in my sidebars and what sort of bling I want there. I've tried to limit my own support to the few groups who have a) recognized me as a viable member of their community and b) are promoting a message in which I believe. I do believe in product reviews -- I'm a card-carrying member of Parent Bloggers Network -- but I link to my review site from my main blog rather than posting my reviews on my main blog because it's an editor's decision to keep that content relatively "clean." It's a publisher's decision to include reviews in my blogging portfolio and link to them from my main blog the day I launch them. I find it to be a really workable solution -- though I think it's fine to do reviews on your main blog if you feel passionate about the product or are supporting the efforts of a friend or colleague.

As for Denise's questions: What do you immediately throw in the trash? Do you have an advertising/marketing standards page on your blog? If you do, how did you come up with the language used on it? Have you ever changed your mind about a embracing marketing or advertising strategy?

I immediately throw in the trash anything that's not addressed personally to me. It's not that hard to do mail merge. I don't do every review opportunity that comes my way, but I always write back to a PR person, thank them for contacting me, tell them why I don't want to review that product and ask them to please consider me again in the future for other campaigns. I also tell them the age of my daughter so they will target me properly. With blogging groups or people with whom I already have a relationship, I just don't reply because I know they are only expecting a reply if I want in.

No, I don't have an advertising/marketing standards page on my blog, but there is one in my head. I feel like my main blog is there for editorial reasons mainly. The ads are BlogHer ad network, and they're there in their spot. People know that's what they are, and I don't feel one bit bad about running them, particularly since we started running PSAs when a campaign's not going. I did think pretty hard about whether or not to do a review blog, and I'm really happy with the decision I made, because it enables me to enthusiastically push products without sacrificing my editorial standards or boring the part of my readership that doesn't care a whit about Pop Tarts.

As for J&J, they learned the hard way that blogger outreach can be awesome or dangerous. I hope the backlash hasn't hurt blogger outreach programs, because it's true that many people trust the opinions of their favorite bloggers more than they do advertising. I don't want blogger outreach to stop.

That said, if you are reaching out to mommies about baby products, I'm not sure why a breastfeeding baby is a problem. I'm in corporate America, and we even do social media-type things at my company. However, we don't sell BABY PRODUCTS. I'm not sure I understand how J&J missed the boat on that one. Also, kudos to BlogHer for not minding the baby-in-a-sling at BlogHer Business last year. Not one person, founder or attendee, said anything in my earshot, about whether or not the baby should be there.

If you want the mind of the blogger, the personality of the blogger, the voice of the blogger, you may also have to accept the milk-bearing-body of the blogger, along with the child who needs the milk, if you are a BABY COMPANY. On the flip side, if I were a breastfeeding mother, I wouldn't have offered to attend. I'm not criticizing anyone who did, just saying I, like Liz, wish we could let the mother decide on her own whether or not she's able to focus with an infant. It depends on the infant. Does she cry a lot? Does she sleep a lot? It depends on the mother. Is she nervous about her baby? Can she multi-task? Mothers know themselves and their children, so why do companies, blogger outreach and otherwise, need to make the rules for us about whether or not we can handle a situation?

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Thank you...

HeatherB — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:01:11 -0500

For clarifying that...

Heather B.
Personal Blog: No Pasa Nada
BlogHer CE: Business, Career & Personal Finance

I have been following this

Dana J. Tuszke — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:19:01 -0500

I have been following this mess for days and I was slightly offended that I wasn't invited, and I'm not even a "top-tier" blogger.

The thing that gets me angry is that that J&J seemed to only invite the bloggers with oodles of traffic, which yes it's important, but I think it's important to branch out. Why does our blogging community have to be so exclusive? Does J&J think that my 85 daily and very loyal readers aren't important, that they wouldn't benefit from the information I would pass along to them if I had attended their event?

I'm just so very happy that the BlogHer conferences and BlogHerAds welcomes bloggers even with the smallest bit of traffic.

Amen.

Dana Loesch — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:36:21 -0500

I just love you, Heather. Thanks for such a well-written post on the subject. Both sides could have handled this better and I totally get all the points involved. I've only met a handful of other bloggers in my area and I'm looking forward to meeting others from around the country.

Party on Wayne!

Dana
Mamalogues.com

I understand how my Ad Networks work, Heather...

Liz Thompson — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:36:20 -0500

...but, sometimes I miss some really important stuff.

What I clearly failed to communicate is that your blog post was absolutely brilliant and that's one of the reasons why I enjoy being associated with online communities, like BlogHer.

Aaaaand, being invited to sponsored events is very, very nice, too.

I also believe that bloggers and corporations still have (and can) learn a lot from each other and it's posts (and comments) like this that help.

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This Full House
This Full House Reviews
This Full House Kids

That depends

HeatherB — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:01:44 -0500

I'm not going to wade into the nuances but it depends on your ad network. If you do have questions about a BHA contract you can ask Denise (Denise@blogher.com) who is the community manager or Jen Scharpen who works for BHA (Jenifer@blogher.com). Either are great and would be able to help.

Heather B.
Personal Blog: No Pasa Nada
BlogHer CE: Business, Career & Personal Finance

Nice, Heather

Mom101 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:56:01 -0500

Well put and well-reasoned. Although I take issue with some of Alyssa's comments that we just need to (basically) buck it up because it's just business. I think it's the old skool model of business and I'd hope that a company reaching out to moms would be more open to other ways of doing things.

In fact, I finally posted about it at Mom-101. Which I've been avoiding doing for ages. Damn you, Heather!

Mom-101
Cool Mom Picks.com

What do you mean we can't blog about a sponsored event?

Liz Thompson — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:53:49 -0500

[eyes go wide]

Huh. You learn something new, every day - and I've been blogging for nearly 5 years - guess it's a good thing I'm going, then.

Thanks for this very insightful post and all of the comments are very, very helpful - especially to bloggers who perhaps don't have the time to read eleventy-hundred brilliant posts, or "haven't been able to get to the next level."

Either way, informative stuff like this helps.

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This Full House
This Full House Reviews
This Full House Kidst

oy and vey

JenB — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:20:24 -0500

My understanding is that they only had space for 50 people. Of course not everyone who is a "mommyblogger" could go. I believe they planned something to benefit them and be fun for moms and it has ended up being analyzed and, over analyzed and in a lot of place, people's comments have been down right mean. PR people are people. When I read the invite, it sounded like a mom-only, no kids event. Yes, midweek is not perfect for everyone, yes, not everyone can go, yes, not everyone can bring their family. Yes, I would love to be invited to all things blogger related, have it paid for and feel comfortable.

There were mistakes, but I feel like they weren't done with malice or exclusion. I think J&J got the picture and we should move on.

I was lucky to be invited and plan to have a nice time with some nice ladies at a "baby camp" (about babies? about kids?, whatever they call it), and I believe, organized by nice ladies.

And, of course, nice points made by all the NICE ladies above.

My glasses tend to be rosy in colour.

Seeking help and more

Denise — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:43:36 -0500

I am really enjoying the comments, thanks Heather for bringing this discussion to BlogHer, and agree with just about every point being made.

It's true, I've talked to many bloggers who don't know what they want or expect from marketing but they almost always know what they don't want.

BlogHer has thousands of "new bloggers" arrive everyday and thousands more who have been blogging for a good long while but haven't been able to get to that next level. Both groups would benefit from hearing more about the process each of you have gone through to determine what type of marketing you will respond to and what type of marketing you won't respond to.

Some questions, off the top of my head: What do you immediately throw in the trash? Do you have an advertising/marketing standards page on your blog? If you do, how did you come up with the language used on it? Have you ever changed your mind about a embracing marketing or advertising strategy?

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

Just Business

HeatherB — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:03:23 -0500

When I started writing in this space I was a business virgin. And now I take glee in every business story that happens to cross my path. My interest is most readily piqued when it comes to marketing and blogging because it is such a relatively new phenomenon that I’ve watched blossom before my eyes. It’s hard not to wonder whether or not the geeks who started blogging so early on ever dreamed that a simple online diary would turn into such a marketing tool. And I doubt that anyone ever thought that mothers would be a driving force within the community. But it has happened, ever so slowly and both bloggers and business are learning to adapt to see what works and doesn’t work. Because it is new and there is no other way to emphasize this fact. Like with anything in its relative infancy things need to be tested and tweaked and expecting perfection is a little…and I am so not going to mince words here…well, it’s bit on the ludicrous side.

Over the past week plus I’ve witnessed a rather spectacular blogging and marketing mess of confusion. That’s the only way to adequately describe the debacle that I’ve been referring to as “Camp Babygate”. Before I go on I feel compelled to say that I’m writing this as a complete outsider to the situation (I don’t have children and so it would have been impossible for me to have been included or to feel hurt for not being included). I am Switzerland and I’m enjoying some wine and trying to digest and comprehend.

The synopsis is that Johnson & Johnson invited 50 ‘mommybloggers’ to attend a midweek conference called Camp Baby. I would imagine that the thought behind this melding of the mommyblogging minds was that Johnson & Johnson knew how much of a force to contend with mothers who blog have become. J&J is the ultimate baby company and figured that they could and should tap into this market, offer up some products, and get the word out via the blogging vehicle. In the following weeks more and more women invited started blogging and twittering about whether or not they would be attending the conference. Innocuous enough, as more of their fellow “mommybloggers” heard about Camp Baby the more chatter started as to who was or wasn’t invited and why. All was still relatively fine. About two weeks ago as the event became more popular and women were finalizing details things seemed to unbuckle at the seams.

Some of those invited felt that they had been “uninvited” as they learned that nursing babies weren’t allowed at the camp because it was a “mother’s getaway”. And others were uninvited when Johnson and Johnson who would be paying for women to travel and stay at the event, was unable to accommodate specific travel arrangements as these bloggers were unable to attend the event in its entirety. All I can say about the various arguments for being upset with Johnson & Johnson is that some seem more valid than others but fine.

Julie from Mothergoosemouse was uninvited after she started to make travel arrangements to get to the airport and mentioned her nine-week old Oliver who would also be attending:

Yesterday, I emailed the organizer who’d approved my attendance to advise her of this change to my arrangements, and she asked if I was planning to bring my infant to the conference. When I confirmed that yes, I would be bringing him along and keeping him in a sling with me, she advised me that, in short, I could not attend with my baby in tow. That Johnson’s Camp Baby had been planned - by mothers - to be a baby-free getaway.

Stefania Pomponi-Butler was ‘uninvited’ as she finalized her travel plans and requested a tweak in her travel needs based on a speaking invitation that she had already accepted at the same time in New York City:

Hi there,

I have already purchased my ticket for the BlogHer conference...I would need travel to J&J on Tuesday to arrive the night before the camp starts. Then I suppose I would need travel back to Manhattan for the BlogHer conference. Is that do-able?

MARCH 15

from Stefania
to redacted < redacted @rfbinder.com>,
date Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 3:55 PM
subject Re: Johnson's Camp Baby Registration Information
mailed-by gmail.com

Sorry meant to say travel on Wednesday to arrive by 6pm. I can use my own ticket to travel home--i just need a way to get to the J&J camp since I hadn't planned on attending. thanks!

MARCH 17 (I am DISINVITED)

from redacted < redacted @rfbinder.com>
to Stefania
date Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 2:43 PM
subject RE: Johnson's Camp Baby Registration Information
mailed-by rfbinder.com

Hi Stefania,
Thanks so much for getting in touch about Camp Baby! (note: I did NOT contact YOU. YOU contacted me, remember?!) Unfortunately, we can only accomodate those who registered to arrive and leave within the parameters of Johnson's Camp Baby. I will be sure to include you in all future invitations and mailings.

Take care!

Best,
redacted, on behalf of Johnson's Camp Baby.

Upon the writing of both of these posts and given the wildfire like movement of sharing throughout the blogosphere, it seemed as if everyone and their mother knew of Camp Baby and Johnson & Johnson’s faux pas. Posts and twitters and emails (OH MY!) flew back and forth as women tried to get to the bottom of what had happened and just how horribly J&J had screwed up. Whether or not this massive company had permanently ruined their relationship with the ever-growing group of women or if they would be able to rebound and score with a successful event. The comments in these posts speak far better than I can as to the breadth of thought and in the end these two posts summed up how Johnson and Johnson and PR companies could rectify their relationship with bloggers:

From Susan Getgood:

Where did it fall down? Errors of execution.

They didn't really understand the mom's point of view. Lori told me that they thought it was understood that this was an adults-only event with no child care. Well, yes, it was. Part of the disconnect was that J&J thought that meant no children or babies whatsoever. Mommybloggers, however, likely interpreted it simply as no child care.

What J&J didn't understand was that a mom with a very young nursing baby might expect something called Camp Baby to accommodate her and her infant since the whole point of bringing such a young baby was that the mother couldn't be separated. In other words, she didn't need child care.

And from Erin Kotecki-Vest:

It’s a damn shame these companies, marketers, PR flacks and social media opportunists don’t actually READ the blogs of the Moms they target. They would learn an awful lot in a very short period of time if they did.

They would learn you might not want to ask the Mom with the newborn to ditch the baby and screw that whole breastfeeding thing to come try their products for a weekend. They would learn you might not want to ask the Jewish Mom to come celebrate Easter or say, attend an event during Passover.

Like I said, I have had a week to dissect this stuff and read and re-read each time becoming more and more intrigued as to how big it managed to get. The latest being in response to the part where Johnson & Johnson said that bloggers who attended could write about the event if they chose but it was not an obligation. No signatures signed in blood to write, “OMFG that baby oil is AWESOME”. That said many of the women invited and confirmed to attend are part of the BlogHer ad network. It is stipulated in BlogHer ad network contracts that “Any sponsored trips are subject to the $40 restriction. If you'd like to blog about a sponsored event or trip, please make sure you're posting your entry on a page that isn't running BlogHerAds.” That from the most recent BlogHer ad network newsletter. This means that women attending the event who are members of the BlogHer ad network cannot write about their trip since it is entirely funded by Johnson & Johnson and the trip is worth over $40. If these women choose to write about it on another page on their site that does not have the ad network code then they are allowed to do as they please. I don’t know the contracts with other ad networks but from my understanding there is not the same restriction. So women who are apart of Federated Media for example, can blog about the event as they please.

After dissecting and thinking and discussing as a person who is genuinely interested in how one problem turned into rallying cries against the Johnson & Johnson PR machine. I can only say that while J&J is a huge corporation they did screw up but not in the whole PR armageddon style that others have purported. Their main issue seems to be that they didn’t state on the outset their explicit expectations of those who were invited and nothing more. They should have stated that women attending were to attend the entire event. They should have also stated that women were not allowed to bring children. All of this would have saved days and days of agony and writing and I’m pretty sure all of these women now have a royal case of carpal tunnel. Johnson & Johnson should know the general audience of who they are trying to market but it is NOT necessarily their responsibility to find out the details of the lives of each blogger that was invited to know how each would react to the invitation. That isn’t to say that J&J isn’t responsible at all but they’re a huge company and this is business to them not a personal affront on those who weren't invited or those with prior commitments*.

That’s what I can’t stress enough: It’s business. Both bloggers and companies need each other and need to learn to maneuver through the tunnels of the other side. Bloggers still don’t seem entirely sure how they want to be treated and corporations don’t really know how to approach them. There are faults on both sides but like I said, it is nothing personal. Companies need to keep a level playing field for all involved. In the case of J&J it would be impossible for them to give special arrangements for each attendee. It would be nice but completely unfair to those who could attend the entire event. And while they did screw up in not announcing in large print what they needed and wanted from those they invited, several days of reading has led me to believe that it really isn’t that big of a deal. They have admitted to their mistake and now all involved can move on. The end. Both sides can learn a lot from what happened here in this relatively new space and then sing kumbaya. It’s business plain and simple. Nothing more and nothing less.

*I found out that the Passover brouhaha was over a different event aimed at mommybloggers