Making Product Reviews, Twitter Parties & Conference Prizing Happen for Moms

Many of you already know that in addition to Mom Spark, I run things over at MomMadeThat.com.  I started Mom Made That! in December 2008, inspired by a Mom Spark Holiday Guide I created.  I witnessed so many amazing mom businesses doing awesome things, so I wanted a place to showcase their talents, inventions, and artistry.

Being an entrepreneur myself, and having tried every home business known to man (i.e. Avon, eBay, housekeeping, home daycare), I know the trials of self-employment.  I know how hard it is to stay motivated when sales are slow, time is hard to manage, and your husband “just doesn’t get it”.  This is what keeps me inspired to help moms in business.

In addition to helping these mom businesses promote and advertise, I have started connecting them with review bloggers.  So far, this has proven very successful for both the business owner and blogger.  In the last three weeks, we have connected over 150 bloggers with review opportunities and have received over 300 requests.  Because of the huge amount of interest, I have created a Premium Membership for those reviewers who would like to be contacted directly when new opportunities become available.  This also means that reviewers do not need to fill out a request form for each product review opportunity, which saves us both tons of time.  The fee for Premium Membership is $10 a year and can be requested in our review form HERE. [Read more...]

Product Reviewers are Bloggers, too.

This issue has been boiling inside of me for a few months now, and was reconfirmed, again, when I attended the Type A Mom Conference town hall meeting, and heard the same conversation ignited.

Product reviewers.  Giveaways.  Apparently, it is a HUGE deal.

Product reviewers seem to be looked down upon, or considered the “bottom rung” of the blogging ladder.  Why?  Maybe because it doesn’t fit inside the blogger mold?  Some would even dare to say that review and giveaway bloggers are not real writers.  But, then, what is a real writer, and can bloggers only be real writers?

I think the underlying issue is that, to some, review and giveaway bloggers are not bloggers at all, so this raises a very important question-

What is the definition of a blogger? [Read more...]