I love PR people! In my mind they bring lots of good things to the blogging world. I do not think that they force bloggers into doing anything. We are adults after all. What are they going to, spank us and take away our birthdays?
I will say that I am guilty of letting reviews and/or giveaways take over my blog at times. Sometimes life gets busy and I will only manage to blog the things I feel obligated to post. That's awful I know, but I am being honest. I try really hard not to let it happen, as I did not start this blogging adventure to be a product tester. For the most part, I avoid straight up review/giveaway blogs. But, there are times that I just don't have anything interesting going on to talk about or any tips to share. I am not blessed with the ability to think of good blog content 24/7. What can I say? I'm human. Maybe it is blogger burnout, but I feel the only person to blame for it is myself.
As for these bloggers getting overwhelmed by PR pitches and such, I just do not understand. You can tell PR reps no. You can just delete those press releases and such. You are not obligated to do anything they are asking you to do. If you are stressing out, just stop or cut back on what you are doing.
I love to review and do giveaways myself, but have no problem saying no to pitches that do not appeal to me. My main issue with PR is getting pitches from folks who have obviously not read my blog. Or getting a really enthusiastic email about a product you'd love to try, then they never respond to your email reply. I also think some folks need to work on the way they pitch things. But, these are minor irritations and just things that need some improvement. Blacking out all PR would not solve these issues.
But, everyone has to do what feels right for them. I don't think there is a right or wrong here. All the bashing is quite sad to me. I like to think of the mom blogsphere as a tight group, but I guess I was wrong. I think it's a shame that the posting of one's opinion can escalate into this mudslinging, cat fighting, high schoolish behavior.
Where do you stand on this one?
