Rant About a "Pro" Bogger's Post

Long post - not what I intended to post today, but I had to. Thanks for reading.

I clicked on a link from the 5 Minutes for Mom Wednesday Wrap Up, and to my surprise, I find a post that really irritates me. This was from a pro-blogger with lots of fans, but whose blog I read for the first time today.

The gist of the post is that it is unethical to promote your blog by whatever marketing methods work for you personally. That mom bloggers are changing and are willing to do whatever it takes, including sacrifice content and ethics in her opinion, in order to promote themselves. The blogger believes she is different, perhaps better, for keeping writing as her focus. Ahem.

I usually don’t touch controversy with a ten foot pole, but this post I reference really got to me, and I’m going to rant.

Excuse me? “ Shameless self-promotion, product integration, and sponsor-hunting” she proclaims as unacceptable?

That’s the pot calling the kettle black! (No, that's not a racist remark!) Perhaps I should say that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

There are ads for professional conferences on her blog, ones which she probably gets paid for. Is she not self-promoting? There are posts linking to other sites on which she writes. There are ads for magazines (for which she is paid to write), newspapers (for which she is paid to write), and other blogs (for which she is paid to write). And she is disgusted by the women who promote themselves by leaving their business cards at the grocery store and the doctor’s office? She advertises products such as Swiffer, probably on a paid basis. I’m certainly not condoning that, but I’m not against it, either. To each her own.

And she scoffed at the mention of a review blog, as if, why would anyone want to write product reviews or host contests! I enjoy getting new products and writing about them, and no one pays me to do so.

Apparently, the author of the blog I reference is a decent writer. People pay her to write. Why should she care if someone is hunting for a sponsor to give her a new car or if people are placing paid ads on their site? Why should she be concerned if someone else is less focused on content than she claims to be? And why worry if other bloggers are paid to attend blogger conferences?

There’s also a rant in her blog about Twitter moms who Tweet all day for shameless promotion. Guess what? She tweets, too. What makes hers different?

She has a large readership, and is invited to speak at the Mom-blogging conferences, but it still sounds like plain old jealousy and a holier-than-thou attitude to me. No, I won’t link to her. I’d be happy to tell you personally which blog rubbed me the wrong way, but I don’t want to post it here and make someone mad. But I did need to get on my soapbox. And now I'm getting off.

In the blogosphere, I think everyone can do whatever they want. It is your blog or my blog, no one else’s blog, and these pro-bloggers don’t need to discourage those that want to try methods they deem less worthy than their own. As I said, To Each Her Own!