While not as lucrative as the US just yet, more and more PR and digital marketing houses are including women bloggers (who have at some point or another had children) in their campaigns for major brands. This is great news and certainly a positive step forward.
What is severely lacking from these campaigns however is a targeted niche approach to selecting which bloggers will review and ultimately represent your clients' brand? More often than not, junior account managers are tasked with the job of finding us. With little to zero knowledge of who we are or what we represent, they hit Google and blindly typing in 'mommy bloggers' and then proceed to incorporating these result into their clients' launch or campaign.
The result is the brave and ridiculous assumption that we all speak to the exact same audience, and are interested in the exact same products and services on the basis that we at some point or another have pushed a baby out.
I have seen moms with teenagers review crawling aid products and moms with babies be excluded from reviewing gadgets. The fact of the matter is that mommy bloggers are either grouped into one demographic of 'mom' and therefore qualify for every nappy and bum cream review under the sun, or, because you fall into this narrow demographic of 'mom' you are suddenly excluded from beauty, fashion or tech brands because somewhere along the line, someone decided that moms stay home all day in their tracksuit only talking about the consistency of their child's poop.
Just like Associated Magazine has various publications that speak to a different demographic of women, some in their early 20's who party and want to know about the latest fashion and cocktail trends, and others in their 40s who want a magazine that speaks to the their family, career and cosmetic needs. Just like Cosmo, Marie Claire and O Magazine all will ultimately have readers who are moms, so mommy blogs have an audience with a variety of interests, a bulk of which are parenting, but a huge portion of these interests are around 'lifestyle.'
Brands and their PR companies seem to get this right with advertising mediums such as T.V, radio and print, so why do the rules change for bloggers?
As a mom, I am just as interested in nail art, shoes and the newest lengthening mascara as I am in a self-sterilizing baby bottle. We want time saving, pocket friendly, high quality, durable and convenient products and services just like any other women, if not more.
Furthermore, our readers trust these brands because we trust them - but many times because PR companies have their targets set on mass participation from the blogging community (often resulting in every blog running the same editorial at the same time), bloggers are not given the opportunity to adequately put a brand through its paces.
I hope to see a change where companies form longer relationships with a targeted handful of industry commentators, thereby allowing bloggers the opportunity to authentically represent a brand. Rather this, than every women with the word 'mom' in their domain name posting a picture to Twitter of the same sample product, on the same day, hash-tag included and calling this PR.
