I mentioned earlier this week that my blogging and professional life were coming together nicely in the form of a trip to Las Vegas to sit on a panel with other, more famous mom bloggers (to be named later) and talk to corporate leaders about what moms want from them. But that's not all. I've also working behind the scenes at my agency to help them and my client understand how to better partner with the mommyblogging world. Mom bloggers are influencers in real life and online, and because their influence is Googleable from here to eternity, courting them is going to be a priority to marketers--at least in the short term.
But here's the rub. One of the questions I've been asked recently is whether so many mommybloggers have embraced companies, going on trips and accepting freebies, that they'll been seen as sell-outs and lose their credibility. I maintained that the best bloggers are sensitive to the issue: they know that if they sacrifice their honest voice to become corporate shills they'll alienate their readers. And what's a mom blog without any readers? A diary, basically.
Mocha Momma put up an interesting post on a related topic this week, railing against women whose motivation to start a blog is getting free stuff from companies. Which, if you think about it, makes very little sense. If readers what to know about your favorite hand cream, it needs to be in the context of your life. And if you don't have a readership to start with, no company worth its salt is going to send you free hand cream.
