Gemma Cartwright writes...
I have a well-documented love / hate relationship with Grazia magazine, and this week it's definitely all about the hate. Why? They put blogging in the 'so long' section of their Hot List (only beaten by badly behaved members of the royal family). Obviously this riled up the fashion team enough to justify a column dedicated solely to arguing the toss. Just because Lindsay Lohan has given up her blog (the example given as to why we're losing 'enthusiasm' in blogs) doesn't mean ours are going anywhere.
The truth? I reckon mags are running scared, and now they've done their bit for 'promoting' blogs (I've given my views to everyone from Vogue to Cosmo in recent months) they're beginning to see us as competition. I'm not implying that Pop Bitch will ever send Heat down the toilet, or that Conde Nast should be quaking in its boots because of Coutorture just yet, but with magazines folding at an alarming rate, the web really is the place to go if you're looking to be a writer, and blogging is the perfect way to make your mark. Personal blogs might be dwindling as people lose interest in updating (let alone reading) them, but specialist ones definitely aren't.
One of the greatest things about blogging is the freedom. No magazine journalist could get away with saying the stuff we bloggers churn out when we're feeling particularly vicious. And though many blogs are supported by advertising (we do have to pay the bills somehow) they're not so reliant on keeping their advertisers sweet all the time so often content is delivered in a more honest, frank way. On the downside, the ease of blogging does mean that for every good, well-researched blog there are loads of awful ones, but a quick turnover (and a few sarcastic comments) means they never last long.
As one of the first people to blog for a living in this country, my biggest struggle when starting out was being taken seriously by PRs and traditional media organisations. The founders of Shiny Media had a slightly easier time because they were print journalists before they were bloggers, but I was fresh out of University (where, ironically, I studied journalism) with very few contacts in my little black book. To most people I was just a girl with a hobby and not a 'proper' writer. Two and a half years later and a day doesn't go by without an email from someone asking to be featured on one of our blogs, an invite to a press event or a sample turning up on my desk. How things change when your unique monthly hits are in league with the circulation of your average women's mag, eh?!
Popular blogs really do have pulling power in their respective industries now. People are realising that it's much better to have us on side than to be struggling against us. It's still a real tug-of-war struggle at times, and we still have to harrass press offices to put us on mailing lists, phone people when they ignore our emails and explain over and over again exactly what a blog is, but for every person who thinks the whole internet thing is 'just a phase', there's someone who'll do cartwheels backwards to get mentioned on blogs in a positive light.
Things are moving forward at an alarming rate, and as I constantly say to my mother, "all that messing around on the computer really did pay off!"
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Hi there blog lady, I completely agree with your points, as a PR, bloggers are a valuable part of the PR lifecycle and a good online campaign can really kickstart some web traffic, in fact some clients of ours want to do solely online campaigns!
I agree with grazia, blogs are over, ruined by PRs who have drowned out what used to be an authentic voice.
They're so over, I'd never bother to waste my time commenting on one.
[/sarcasm]
Fair point Tip, but I suppose that depends on whether or not the blogger is bothered about keeping the PRs happy. I'm in no rush to please them if I disagree on something. I still believe it's my duty to tell the truth or my readers will soon get bored.
If it wasn't for blogging about something I enjoy doing, I wouldn't be working in an industry that makes things that I had formerly only blogged about.
There are a lot of blogs out there, and finding the good ones with good writers is becoming increasingly difficult. It's probably mostly to do with more blogs being published, but as there are more bloggers, I would think that there would be increasing demand for better writers as well.