Media/PR Information
Having been blogging/journaling since dinosaur days (1995 – archives go to 2000,) I feel a responsibility to my readers and to uphold my reputation. I review a huge variety of products. Sometimes there will be negative reviews. Can’t help that, I’m honest. I don’t accept reviews unless I feel it has a place in my own life. I don’t review all products I’m approached for, and I’m sorry, but I cannot respond to all the pitches I receive. And while I love the PR and media people I work with – there are a few things that will be deleted from my inbox. I don’t publish press releases. If I’m truly excited about something and publish about it – It won’t be because you sent a press release, and I don’t use that kind of verbiage. If you send an email starting out, “Dear Ms.,” it will be deleted. If it’s not obvious why, then we wouldn’t be a good fit working together anyway. It’s a pet peeve of mine. If you don’t hear from me, that probably means I don’t think we’re a fit together. Try me on your next campaign! I do expect compensation for all reviews, giveaways and promotions (more on that below) unless it’s something I found on my own. Why? Because it takes time to use a product properly enough to review it, to write thoughtfully, to put together graphics, research and the like, and then promote the post. I take seriously what I put my name to, and I expect to be compensated for that time. A good post to read is Geekmommy’s Why Mom Bloggers Aren’t Just Flipping for a Sample of Your Product. Reviews: Giveaways: Advertising: Blogads – Click to order advertising in the top left column
Every product is different. In general, I receive the product to keep as compensation for my time. I will not review anything without actually having the product. How can I talk about it without it? I will expect you to send the product at no cost to me. I keep the product as compensation for an honest review. Please note: I do both negative AND positive reviews. In fact, my format is to list all the positives AND negatives about a product before giving my final opinions. Contact me for details.
Giveaways can result in a lot of talk about the product! One giveaway can result in hundreds of entries – that’s hundreds of people taking a peek at your product. Because of the effort involved, I am compensated for giveaways. Again – I take my name seriously. I usually don’t receive the product, unless there’s a review involved (see above.) Giveaways receive a lot of exposure – people love free stuff! However, I really only want to give away things that I might like myself, or find really useful. There’s a lot of work that goes into giveaways to do them right. Every giveaway is different. In general (again every product, prize, and giveaway is different) – compensation is based upon the retail value of the giveaway prize. Why? Because the more expensive the giveaway item it, generally the more entries there are, and therefore the more effort goes into the upkeep of the giveaway.
Leave a Reply
