A few days ago I stumbled across this article on NPR. It basically talks a lot about mom blogs and how corporations are now targeting them to do reviews or "advertorials" on their products because they know that moms are the bigger spenders in households. The article discusses whether readers are getting honest reviews or not because these mom want to keep receiving free products. It was very interesting. I highly recommend reading it if you are a mom blogger or if you are interested at all in how this side of blogging works.
This morning I have added a new badge on the left side bar that looks like the image above. I read about this pledge that bloggers can take to blog with integrity in the NPR article. I feel strongly about blogging with integrity so I have signed the pledge and displayed the badge now on my blog. By doing this you as my readers will know that I will fully disclose if I am writing about a product that I have been given by the company or writing about something I personally purchased.
My blog is not a "big" blog in the blogging world. At this point companies are not knocking down my door to get me to write about them. I do this for fun. I don't make any money off this blog as we don't have ads on here. I do have some affiliate links, but these are of stores I have personally shopped and would recommend regardless. The products I have written about in the past have been purchased by me and are used in our home on a regular basis. I will tell you though if I write about a product I was "gifted" and I will be honest in my review of it.
Would I like to make money off my blog? Sure! I think that would be awesome to help bring in some income to our family while still staying at home with our kids, but I will not sell my soul to do so. I appreciate that anyone besides my family actually cares enough to read my blog and come back to it and most of all leave a comment, so in return I want you to know where I stand.
What do you think about "blog with integrity"? Do you think it's okay for mommy bloggers to receive free products to review on their blogs? Are you a mommy blogger? Will you sign the pledge? Let me know your thoughts!
3 comments:
I saw your link to this blog post on Twitter (I follow you . . . that sounds so weired). Anyway, thanks for sharing your heart. I have seen similar buttons, but wasn't quite sure what they were and didn't take the time. I am going to be reviewing products for the Old Homeschool magazine and am grateful for your post. I have been wondering how to handle my reviews. We are encouraged to be honest in our reviews, but I didn't want people to think I just bought all of this stuff. So thanks. I will look into this and take the pledge!
thanks for the link. I need to go and read the entire thing. But from what you wrote in this post I completely agree. I don't consider myself a big blogger but I have had a decent number of e-mails asking if I'd like to review things. I rarely accept. Actually I just accepted the first thing but it's something that I would absolutely buy myself to try out. As long as you're open that you received it to review and are giving your honest feedback - oh and that it's actually something relevant to your blog then I don't really see a problem with it. That's my 2 cents on the whole thing. :)
I think that's great. I have been doing quite a few product reviews lately and I've yet to encounter a incident where I couldn't give a positive review. Actually, I'm reviewing a nursing tank right now that I'm not crazy about and I plan to share ALL my thoughts when I do write the review. Anyway. I'll definitely be checking out the link, taking the pledge and posting the button. Thanks for sharing.
Post a Comment