Guest post from Maggie O-Neill

According to MomDot, mommy bloggers were encouraged last week to take a much needed girls’ week off (August 6-10) to recover from “blogger burnout” via a PR Blackout Challenge. 

First off, I want to start this post with “good for you.”  At least from the perspective of someone who would like a week off to focus on myself and getting back to basics. And I get some of the burnout issues mommy bloggers must be facing – their quick rise to fame in the last few years has propelled them to one of the most powerful consumer voices across most industries. For this reason, I applaud them, engage with them and rely on them for insight from a personal and professional level.

But a publicized PR Blackout? Was it really necessary? Did it make a difference? The call-to-action stated that these moms have put aside what is important and become PR for their audience, and therefore have to get back-to-basics. It goes on to compare their deadline stress to what GM’s CEO must feel driving to work every day. Somehow I doubt that (no disrespect). Last time I checked, there was no U.S. implosion of the mommy blogger industry, and Detroit is not full of unemployed bloggers.

So, in a typical, “we don’t need them, they need us” strategy, mommy bloggers turned their cheek last week at some of the folks who helped propel their blogs into the spotlight. Media and PR professionals have done this dance for years; and we know at the end of the day, we really both need each other in order to stay afloat and relevant. 

Sure moms could go back to talking about just their kids and family, but I’m not sure they really want to; and from my experience, most of the blogs are meant to help this group, not harm. In fact, the mom bloggers I talked to this weekend love the job they have created. It allows them to not only be moms, but be moms with a voice that is heard outside of their four walls.

Not sure how the blackout played out, if anyone noticed, or if it helped moms get back-to-basics.  But, for an industry that changes on a daily basis, stepping out last week may be a vacation that is tough to come back from.