What NOT to do when Working with Bloggers

She's a bloggin' cowgirl.

Even in the Wild Wild West that is the Social Media Landscape, there are some rules.  And I have no problem sharing a few of them.  Some are pretty clear:  don’t plagiarize.  SelfishMom, Beccarama and I (Coast to Coast Mom couldn’t make it!) talked about the big plagiarism scandal that was all over the mom-blogosphere last week on our Blogging Angels Podcast. For once, we all agreed: don’t steal someone else’s words.  It is wrong.  That’s not really a tough one.

There are other Blogger rules of conduct to follow:  don’t beg for votes, follows, or retweets, don’t take it personally if you are not invited to some event or another.  Do write about, or furiously Tweet about events you do attend.  Don’t work for free – but do define payment in whatever way works best for you. (Product, experience, exposure.. beccarama has a great post about it) Do offer link love. Don’t relentlessly promote your own posts on Twitter to the exclusion of all else.  Do re-tweet, and tweet out other people’s posts you enjoy.

Basically, it’s all Golden Rule stuff:  Do unto others. Simple.

For brands and marketing companies, not always so simple, as some of my recent experiences have proven.  So here’s a short list of do’s and don’t for brands when working with bloggers.

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One: 12 Days of Change – Send a Message of Hope and Thanks

I took this last Christmas in Kailesha, South Africa

Think about all the time you spend sending messages. There are the obvious ones – like the emails, the texts, the tweets, the Facebook posts. And there are the not so obvious ones – like the message you send your daughter every time you complain about your weight. Or the message you send your neighbor every time you’re too busy to look up from your cell phone to say hello. The message you send to the government every time you vote. The music you listen to sends a message; so do the clothes you wear and the car you drive. We send messages all the time.

So why not send a message that can make a difference?

Today, I’m participating in One’s 12 Days of Change: 12 ways to give back and change the world, without getting on a plane, without too much strain or disruption of your own life, without writing a check. Each day of the campaign, a ONE Mom blogger will announce a simple action you can take to make the world just a little bit better. So far, there have been posts from SelfishMom (not so Selfish after all, is she?), Upper Case Woman, The Culture Mom, Coast to Coast Mom, Mom it Forward Love that Max, and Her Bad Mother (not so bad, I’m guessing). I’m day nine, and my mandate is this: to get people to take a moment to send a message to people on the front lines of the fight against AIDS – to the people working the combat and control the disease in Africa – to let them know that they are appreciated and not forgotten.

It’s simple: leave a message of thanks or encouragement in the comment section below, and the kind folks at One (yes, that’s Bono‘s organization) will deliver the message to the people battling the disease every day.

I’ll start: Here’s my message:

Be proud. Because look what you’ve accomplished already:

• Currently, an estimated 3.9 million Africans are on antiretroviral treatment, up from 50,000 in 2002.
• Botswana and Rwanda have achieved universal access – treatment levels that reach at least 80% of patients in need – for antiretroviral therapy. Benin, Ethiopia, Mali, Namibia, Senegal, Swaziland and Zambia had coverage rates between 50 to 80%, demonstrating progress towards universal access.
• 54% of HIV-positive pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa received drugs to prevent the transmission of HIV to their children in 2009, up from only 11% in 2004.
• More than than 95% of HIV-positive pregnant women in Botswana received medication that assists in preventing mother to child transmission in 2009, up approx. 35% since 2005. (source http://www.one.org/c/us/progressreport/778/)

These are encouraging, wonderful statistics. And they send a message. A message that you have been working hard. A message that it’s working, that fewer people are getting sick, fewer babies are born sick, more people are getting the medication they need to live long, full, lives. So be proud. Be strong. Be assured that your work is neither in vain, nor taken for granted. You are making a difference in the world.

Now it’s your turn, readers. Your kind words to these health-care and aid workers can make a difference, too. So leave a comment. Tell these people you appreciate them. Then tweet out this post and tell your friends to do the same. Because wouldn’t it be nice to make a difference by making someone feel good? By showing someone just how many people over here care about what’s happening over there? (Remember, it won’t just live on this blog, One will deliver it to AIDS workers in Africa.)

After you leave a comment, encourage others to do the same by tweeting out this:

! @hip2housewife is sending messages of thanks to those fighting AIDS in Africa. Click over & add yours. http://ht.ly/7X96P #12daysofchange

And don’t forget to leave your own message. One Voice can make a difference. Why not let it be yours?

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Blogher 2011: Let the Petty Jealousy Begin!

Yesterday, The Blogging Angels sent out our invitation to a small breakfast during Blogher.  Aimed (mostly) at up-and-coming bloggers, the breakfast is about learning to work with brands, to present yourself and your blog in the best light.  Already, the Twitter-sphere is a-flutter with the haves and have nots.  People wish they were invited, are jealous of those that were.  They’re hurt.  They feel excluded. You’d think that, as one of the Blogging Angels, I’d be immune to all that.

You’d be wrong.

See, all of the other Blogging Angels have been getting tweeted by the invitees “Can’t wait to meet you!” or by the non-invitees “Do you think there’s room for me, too?”  There have even been multiple tweets by people saying how much they are looking forward to meeting the Blogging Angels: @selfishmom, @c2cmom and @beccasara.  Notice any name missing from that list?

Of course logically, I know it’s silly: I am one of the people throwing the party.  I am one of the Blogging Angels, whether I’m in those tweets or not.  And, truth be told, I am the least social-media entrenched of the bunch, and the least well known. It’s not like it’s some big surprise to me to find out that fewer people know me than know the other Angels.  To some degree, that’s my choice.  My focus, for the past year, has been KidzVuz – which – while it exists in the digital space, is not a blog at all.  It’s an internet start-up, with all of the attendant business plan, fund-raising, and development issues. It’s been all-encompassing, and I’ve never been one who is particularly good at giving my all to all things. I wish I could be.  But that’s life.

I’m even hosting a second party – for 300 women – as KidzVuz, on the night before Blogher. And yet I still feel badly that I wasn’t invited to a bunch of parties  – parties that I wouldn’t have been able to go to – that very night!  It’s ridiculous, I know. But there it is. Over at Beccarama, Rebecca Levey (my KidzVuz partner and (tweeted) fellow Angel) wrote a post about party-envy. Part disclaimer (she is hosting two events during BlogHer) and part voice of reason, her central point is this: it’s not about how many parties you are invited to, but about what you make of the parties you do attend. Makes sense to me.  Now if only it felt true, too.

Look, I know that BlogHer isn’t supposed to be about the parties.  It’s meant t be about crafting your blog, developing your brand, joining the community.  But just like Twitter often feels an awful lot like Junior High, so do all Blog Conferences end up being a series of parties – which can mean a series of social slights – or social triumphs.

I wish I could be above it all.  I wish I could listen to the logical side of me that says “it doesn’t matter; it’s not about the parties; you’re hosting two of them yourself!”  But, alas, the 12 year old girl in me is still alive and well, and worried about being asked to the the seventh grade dance (The Snowball.  Nobody asked me.  I went in my Gunne Saxe dress.)

The one bright spot about watching all of this unfold is that it’s made me realize: I’m not the only one.  Prominent bloggers are angling for  invites. Even they feel left out.  So no wonder, that what with my less-than-spectacular klout score and blog-stats, I’m feeling insecure too.

I can’t help but wonder if men go through this.  Do they care if they’re invited to some industry event?  My guess is no. But neither do most businesses – male or female – have the sense of community that the Mom Blog world does. So I guess on balance, it’s not so bad.  On the one hand, I feel hurt that not only did those tweets go out without my name in them, but that none of my virtual friends even thought to tweet back “Hey!  What about @Hip2Housewife!?” On the other hand, just this weekend I had a lovely dinner with a friend – and our husbands – I met in the blogosphere.  Last week I turned a virtual friend into a real one when she came to NY.  And the person I spend the most time with in the world (aside from my husband.  At least I’m pretty sure I spend more time with him) is a friend I met through blogging, and who I can’t imagine being without.

Hopefully, I will go to BlogHer and have fun, and not care who tweets about how happy they are they met me.  Hopefully, I’ll just be happy to meet people myself.  And finally, stop worrying about what other people say or don’t say, stop minding if I’m not included in something I don’t really want to go to anyway, stop being twelve, and start being me.

Hey, it’s something to strive for.

 

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