Hi Guys!
I’ve just been sitting here with my morning tea, catching up with a few emails and scrolling my Twitter feed for the latest news and gossip, when I came across a fair few people (well three that I saw) sharing this post.
I’ve gone over this post a couple if times now, and just wanted to share a few thoughts with you.
Firstly, let’s look at this fact – the blogger is said to have ’emailed a few times asking for free macaron and marshmallow samples in return for posting a positive review’.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with approaching companies you’d like to work with, but if she’s 1. pestering them, and 2. guaranteeing them a positive review from the offset, before trying the products, this instantly reeks of ‘blagging’ for free products, and greatly affects her credibility.
Then when this happens… ‘she asks for 3 large boxes of Muffles, Marshmallows and Macarons, plus two drinks. That’s almost £100 worth of stuff!’
It is never acceptable for a blogger (or anyone for that matter) to demand things like this, it’s unprofessional, gives the blogging community a bad name, and frankly it’s just plain rude.
And not forgetting this – ‘…insinuating that if we didn’t hand over all that stuff she’d be giving us bad reviews’
Just wow. I literally have no words for this.
I’ve taken a look at the bloggers social sites and her tweets and instagram posts about this appear to have been removed. Take from this what you will.
So we’ve established that the blogger has really been pretty out of order in this instance (assuming this is all true – we don’t know the bloggers version of events at this point) That aside though, I think the issue here is the expectations from both sides, and an apparent lack of communication.
We don’t know the email exchange between the company and the blogger – and I’m giving the blogger the benefit of the doubt here, but maybe she was expecting to be gifted some boxes of products? Maybe she was told she could have what she liked from the shop? We don’t know.
The overall lesson to be learned here is that when bloggers and brands work together, the relationship should be mutually beneficial, otherwise one side will end up unhappy or feeling either out of pocket, or like the other is using them.
Brands and companies need to recognise that bloggers spend a lot of time, effort and money building up and working on their blog, and for many, offering a small item of low monetary value in return for a full review that takes a lot of time and effort, just isn’t worth it.
That said, if the agreement in this instance was that the blogger would received a goody bag, and she agreed to it, then that’s her prerogative, and she should have honoured that. At the end of the day it’s your blog, and you can do exactly as you please.
Obviously nobody knows the full story in this case as we haven’t heard things from the bloggers perspective, but it appears that the blogger expected to be receiving quite a lot of product for her review, and when that didn’t happen, she had a diva strop. The problem is a simple lack of communication that has gone very wrong.
It’s never acceptable for a blogger to demand anything, wether it’s in a shop or via an email. This is NOT COOL and gives bloggers such a bad name. 99% of bloggers would never dream of acting in this way, and it’s such a shame that some do this, as it negatively impacts the rest of the community, and makes building relationships with companies and brands that much harder.
Brands and companies should be also clear about what they’re offering, and expecting from a blogger in their initial communication – I often find myself that it can take a fair few emails back and forth before I find out exactly what the situation is. It would be fantastic and easier for everyone if companies we’re more upfront from the beginning of a conversation.
Anyway, you can see I’ve been playing devils advocate a bit here. Hopefully the blogger will write up about her experience soon too so we can hear her version of events.
I’d love to hear what you think about this situation?
*Update – the blogger has now written her side of the story, you can read it here. As I suspected, this whole mess has happened due to a breakdown in communication. Let me know what you think xx