This is shaping up to be quite the interesting battle. The New York times printed an article called Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand, and it has many mom bloggers furious.

I can’t say I blame them. Much of the article is condescending. Little mommy bloggers making money. How cute.

A part of the problem is that it appears in the Fashion and Style section. Considering the effect mom bloggers are having on marketing, the business section strikes me as far more appropriate.

The comparison to a Tupperware party or a kaffeeklatsch is no doubt intended to be cute, but many mom bloggers find it to be more condescending. They clearly don’t like that mom bloggers are including earning money in what for some reason ought to be a purely social hobby.

It’s a common problem for moms. Work outside the home, you’re neglecting your children. Stay at home, you’re lazy. Find a way to do both, well you’re just terrible! Negligent, lazy, and how dare you make a living doing something you enjoy.

Moms blogging goes beyond parenting and gossip. Sure there’s talk about diapers, parenting skills and rough days. But there’s also work on our favorite causes. With our highly personal voices, there’s great connection with readers, and marketers love that.

Are there legitimate concerns about honesty when some bloggers review products? Absolutely. But that goes for all kinds of blogs. It’s just that you hear about it when they talk about mom blogs. It’s why disclosure is so important.

We’re very fortunate that it is so possible for moms to have such a voice online these days. I’d just like to see it taken more seriously by others in the media.

So far that’s not happening. You just have to take a look at the articles the New York Times has posted about mom bloggers  to see what I mean. Kelby Carr has a great list in her post, Newspaper Bias Against Mom Bloggers, and it’s not just a problem with the New York Times.

There’s a lot of great reading available out there about this article. Here are a few I’ve found. Share your favorites in the comments if you like.

New York Times Biased Against Mommy Bloggers?

Honey, Don’t Bother Me. I’m Too Busy Writing With a Toddler In My Lap

Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Writing a Mildly Annoyed Letter to the New York Times.

Why did you start blogging? My views on the New York Times article

and of course Kelby Carr’s article linked above in my post.

The post The New York Times vs. Mom Bloggers appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

A post over on Jessica Knows about her experience with some reporters misreporting how she discloses on her blog got me thinking about how mom blogs in general seem to be the ones getting an awful lot of the attention when it comes to disclosure issues and advertising. There’s been a lot of talk lately about more regulation of social media marketing and how bloggers disclose. For some reason, mom bloggers seem to be a popular focus of attention.

This drives me nuts. Mom bloggers are far from the only ones getting merchandise to try in order to review it. That’s something that has been going on for a long time in many other areas, as commenter Crunchy Carpets pointed out, and as I’ve been wondering as well. I’ll quote her, as she has it right:

What I am curious about is why the ‘mom’ bloggers seem to be getting more heat about reviews than other areas on the blogosphere. Are the male tech writers getting scrutinized by mainstream media and the FTC? They all get sent free stuff. Are the video game or movie sites getting grilled for their ‘promotional’ efforts. They all get sent free stuff.
Movie sites get sent to sets and on press junkets and given all sorts of freebies in return for ‘good reviews. Their morals have been argued about for years. It is all nothing new.

All this doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with appropriate disclosure. It just means that I don’t see why it’s suddenly a big deal when mom bloggers get the things other sites have long been getting.

It strikes me as sexist too.

Momblebee makes similar points, as do some of the other commenters.

Free samples have been given in exchange for review for a long time, longer than blogging has been around. It’s nothing new. Perhaps the only new thing about it is that just about anyone can start a blog, and not have the costs associated with starting a print magazine or newspaper. It’s very open.

Yes, that means some people will lie about the products because they think only a good review should be posted. Yes, some people will be fooled into buying things they wouldn’t have if an honest review had been posted. Goodness knows that dishonest reviews are common enough in the work at home arena!

But does that mean we need special disclosure rules?

I tend to think not. I would expect the standard rules on making false advertising claims should be sufficient. Best aimed at the blogger, and at the advertiser more if there seems to be a pattern of encouraging false claims. It’s awfully hard for advertisers to control what bloggers say, after all, and still keep things honest in both positive and negative comments about the product.

There’s no doubt that the internet is very much a wild frontier in many ways as of yet. It’s much harder to control what goes on when it’s so easy for content to be created. That’s not a call for speedy, harsh regulation. There’s an advantage to the wild growth and free flow of information that the internet provides.

Should buyers beware when they read online reviews? Absolutely.

Should reviewers disclose if they got products free or have a relationship with the business whose product they are reviewing? Of course.

But no matter how the disclosure is done, it comes down to a matter of trust. A good source will be trusted with or without the disclosure.

A bad one may be trusted once or twice, but if they share false information people will learn. Certainly not as quickly as the FTC would like, but that’s going to happen even with regulation, as new sites and blogs will pop up faster than they can be reviewed… not to mention everything that is based from outside the United States.

Much as one might like all reviews to be honest, it’s not going to happen.

As a blogger or business owner, all you can do is keep yourself honest. Being transparent about when you get something for free is a generally good idea. If nothing else, it will help you if the FTC does keep getting serious about this. It also makes it clearer why you’re talking about a product that maybe you wouldn’t have otherwise. Say what you really feel, even when it’s not 100% positive.

Of course, the focus on mom bloggers may in large part be simply due to the media. And if you think the disclosure issues are going to be a problem, you’ll also want to pay attention to the part about “atypical results”. Lynn Terry has a really good post on this issue. The FTC doesn’t even want atypical results to be used, even if they’re your own experience. They only want typical results, which strikes me as beyond problematic. How can you discuss your own experience then? How do you know what’s typical?

If you review products, whether you’re paid to do so or just receive them free, or even if you’re hoping to get an affiliate commission for sales through your links, it’s really going to pay to think about what you’re saying. Have a disclosure policy and stick strictly to it.

And, of course, keep paying attention to the story as it develops. It doesn’t matter what kind of blog or site you have, if you’re talking about products you need to know what’s might impact your business.

The post Why Are Mom Blogs Getting So Much Attention from the FTC? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.