Scrappy Marketing Solutions Blog

Women Bloggers to Watch in 2008

While checking out my incoming links this morning, I found a link to Heidi Richards' Virtual Woman's Day Celebrations, and a specific post: Women Bloggers to Watch in 2008!

Women are blogging in record numbers these days - so many blogs, so much content and so little time to check them all out. Each month during 2008, I will be highlighting dozens of blogs written by women, on a variety of topics, genres and locations around the globe. These women share one thing in common. They have a goal, a theme and a purpose in their lives.

What a cool idea!  Love it!  Sharing resources AND highlighting other women bloggers.  Sign me up!

Actually, blog owner Heidi already did -- Scrapbook Marketing was listed on her list of Virtual Woman's Day 25 Women Bloggers to Watch in 2008 for January.  Wow - Very flattering and validating.

Heidi has chosen an interesting variety of women bloggers - personal/life coaches, a natural living specialist, home business owners, online marketers, even a money-making math teacher! I'm curious to know how to she found (and chose) them all.  I know I'm going to enjoy checking them all out.

Her list also has me thinking of what kind of "XX to Watch in 2008" I could put together for the scrapbooking industry.  Manufacturers to watch?  Everyday scrappers to watch?  Scrap-bloggers to watch?  And what criteria would I use to choose them as "watchable"? 

Just poking around the other 24 sites, I found a cool wrap-up of a reader-generated list of Home Biz Myths Busted.  What kind of myths could we bust about scrapbooking? (And then publish a press release with the results, of course!)

My gears are turning...  I'd love to hear your thoughts - feel free to leave a comment! 

Blog Marketing: Are you committing libel?

Something I read recently on a blog reminded me of an article I've been meaning to share here: Steve Tobak's Bloggers beware: You're liable to commit libel.  The basic point: blogs make it really easy to publish your writing (and market your business), but before you hit that Save button, make sure your "facts" aren't fiction.  Bloggers are held accountable under defamation law.

Consider these definitions of libel from Merriam-Webster:

• a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression
• a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt
• defamation of a person by written or representational means

And this definition of defame: to harm the reputation of by libel or slander.  See also the Online Defamation Law by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Let's say, hypothetically, someone were to mention me in a blog post, and called me a "one-hit wonder", this could be considered defamation.  It conveys an "unjustly unfavorable impression" of my work - because the statement implies that I was *only* successful at publishing one book, and that I basically disappeared from the industry after that.

Such a statement could be considered defamation because it's not true - I had *three* books published, and have been writing magazine articles for multiple magazines in the industry, for both trade and consumer magazines, for over five years -- not exactly a "10 minute claim to fame".  The statement could also be considered defamation, or libelous, because it undermines my position as an expert in this industry, which could cost me consulting projects.  To imply that I don't have the knowledge to back up my expertise, or that I gained my knowledge by "spying" is just plain factually incorrect.

The point is - if you have a blog, use it wisely.  ANYTHING you publish can come back to haunt you.  Don't publish anything you wouldn't say to someone's face, and don't publish anything that you can't back up factually. 

And if you hide behind the guise of "expressing an opinion", if you don't have your facts straight, you just come off looking stupid.  Or worse, looking like a bully.  But then, my parents taught me just to ignore bullies - they're only looking for attention.