Photo courtesy of Velveteen Mind

Regulating Mommy Bloggers: Will the FTC hurt their influence?

The influence of mommy bloggers—both paid and unpaid—has recently caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The organization believes if bloggers are compensated to promote or review a product, they are not exempt from the laws governing truthful advertising. Patti Minglin recently asked one of the leading experts of the mommy blogosphere Jory Des Jardins, co-founder and president of strategic alliances for BlogHer, Inc., to give us some additional insight into how such regulations may affect the relationship mommy bloggers have with brands and consumers.

Patti Minglin:  Is there any unwritten rules of thought regarding product reviews from mommy bloggers?  Are they expected to always be positive?  Should they mention they are getting the products for free? Etc.?

Jory Des Jardins: Our review policy is simple: if you want to be a BlogHer Reviewer, you agree to disclose that you were provided with product and hired by BlogHer to write your review. If others choose not to disclose, that’s their option, but if you are a BlogHer Reviewer, it’s a requirement. We’ve always required disclosure, and with the FTC’s current scrutiny of reviews on blogs, we’re seeing other publishers following suit.

A common question that we’re asked by marketers is, “What if I engage bloggers in product reviews, and they write a nasty one?” We are opposed to paying bloggers for endorsement, and the brands we work with feel the same way. We guarantee balanced reviews, not positive reviews, and the brands we work with are satisfied with that, for a number of reasons: They’ve largely embraced the blogosphere and understand the heightened value of authentic word of mouth. There’s a halo effect behind brands that support this authenticity. Brands that try to sculpt the message the blogger writes run the risk of discrediting themselves, and bloggers run the risk of losing credibility with their readers; it’s a much bigger risk to a brand in the end.

We’ve also found the question of nasty reviews to be somewhat moot. If you engage the right bloggers to review a product from the beginning, those who are interested in delivering value to their audiences and naturally interested in the product or service in question, then they will be more interested in providing their fair, balanced review than wasting their own time, or their reader's time, with a pan. One blogger, an avid reviewer of products for moms, shared with me that she’d rather not waste her time reviewing a product that won’t work for her readers. Many bloggers feel this way. If they don’t like the product, they’ll say, “Hey, I’d rather not write about this.”

Minglin: According to the FTC, if bloggers are compensated to promote or review a product, they are not exempt from the laws governing truthful advertising.  However, how will they be able to monitor this in the mommy blogosphere?  Will it be difficult for them to tell the difference between a genuine review and one that is a carefully crafted sales pitch?

Des Jardins: I mentioned that readers don't fall for inauthentic reviews, and that’s true for the most part. But it makes sense that some bad apples that have entered the blogosphere more for commercial reasons than to engage a community can potentially wax euphoric about a product that she was paid to endorse. For that reason, I think disclosure will start to become the rule. It will immediately indicate transparency so that we don’t have to question the relationships behind content. I know that Google has taken a stand against links that are paid for (aka pay-per-post) and says there will be accountability for publishers that do not disclose their relationship to a mentioned brand. In the past Google has stripped the page rank of sites they felt were abusing links in such a manner. How do they know when this occurs? Where are they drawing the lines, exactly? Actually, we don’t know, but why risk alienating Google?

Minglin: If there are regulations set for bloggers, what will this do to the true nature (and popularity) of mommy bloggers?

Des Jardins: I don’t think it will have a diminishing effect. When my partners and I started BlogHer, there was a population of mommy bloggers who were more than satisfied with building their platforms and connecting with other bloggers, without making money. To this day, according to our 2009 Women and Social Media Study, the top three reasons our community blogs is 1) for fun, 2) to express myself and 3) to connect with others like me. Not on the list: to shill product. Partnering with brands came later, after bloggers established their personal and professional communities online. While there may be a drop off in some of the more opportunistic sites, regulation won’t affect the healthy core of mommy bloggers who still blog because they love it and believe in monetizing only if it doesn’t sacrifice their integrity and connection with readers.

What do you think?  We are looking for thoughts from mommy bloggers on how they feel about recent FTC comments.  Email Patti Minglin if you are interested in being part of the follow-up to this story.