While blawgers, and even marketing lawyers, think our efforts online are touching a few lives here and there, we’re deluding ourselves.  In the grand scheme of the ether. we are but pikers, tiny gnats of no consequence.  At least compared to the Mommy Bloggers.

I just watched a Good Morning America segment on “mommy bloggers,” the point of which is that there are a host of mommies out there blogging away for loot.  Some get free stuff for their kids from, and I quote, “hundreds of companies,” while another held herself out as professional, supporting her family on her blogging income. 

One of the complaints was by a reader, who wanted to know the best stroller, and later realized that the blogger upon whom she relied was a paid shill.  This was offered as the genesis of the FTCs consideration of bringing blogs under their control, to prevent the mommies of the world from promoting goods without disclosing that they are on the dole.

This quote, from 2009, fails miserably to capture the current state of affairs, as I’ve come to learn in keeping an eye on the shenanigans used by KitchenAid* to promote their social media presences through some of the most obviously deceptive means.  And the mommy bloggers are loving it.

Every couple of days, there’s a new giveaway.  The deal is that KitchenAid throws a free mixer or blender at a mommy blogger in exchange for a “review.”  with another freebie to be given away.  Want to win?  Who doesn’t want a free appliance, right?  All you need do is :

• Check out KitchenAid’s website and tell me what’s at the top of your wish list.  At the top of my wish list, you’d find this Raspberry Ice Stand Mixer! 
  
• Follow @KitchenAidUSA on twitter, and tell them that @alltheweigh says hi! (one entry)
  
• Tweet about this giveaway on twitter by sharing a link to this post.  (one entry)
  
• Like KitchenAid on Facebook, and tell them Kenlie from alltheweigh.com sent you! (one entry)
  
• Feel free to say hi to me on Facebook too though you won’t receive an entry for that.  I just like connecting with you.  src=”http://www.alltheweigh.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif”>
  
• Blog about this giveaway (linking to this post) on your own blog!  Come back and leave a link so I can see it.  (two entries)

Get the picture?  And when the entry requires someone to say KitchenAid is the greatest thing since sliced bread, they will. Why not, if it will get you something free.

In comparison, lawyers get squat.  There’s no appliance company throwing swag our way.  Maybe a book here and there, but that’s about as good as it gets.  I suspect this is a good thing, that blawgers aren’t offered big time swag for writing “reviews” about anything that people really want, as we could be every bit as shameless as the mommies, if not more.

Still, that doesn’t forgive the massive fraud permeating the blogosphere when it comes to shills.  Some mommy bloggers contend that while they’re thrilled to get free valuable stuff, it doesn’t influence their reviews.  Reading some, you realize that the “review” is right out of the manufacturer’s brochure, but still, it’s impossible to prove they weren’t happy with the product.  Of course, when the price is free, happiness is easy to come by.

Some of the mommy bloggers note that they are reviewing products in exchange for a freebie, complying with the FTC requirement.  Others, not so much.  Not only are they enjoying the benefits of swag, but the giveaway allows them to fabricate a level of interest, both in the product as well as their blog, by requiring twits and likes and even expressions of love and adoration.  If it could get you a free blender, would it really be a problem to twit “KitchenAid blenders are the grooviest thing ever?”  After all, you know it’s nonsense.

The point is manufacture the appearance of quality and interest on the internet so that others, considering actually purchasing a good (meaning either too stupid to play the giveaway game, in actual need of an appliance or not such a cheapskate that they will pay for the things they want) see this vast outpouring of positive support.  And it’s total nonsense.

At the same time, it turns up the volume of happy noise and drowns out legitimate voices about the problems suffered by those unfortunates who were foolish enough to buy the stuff. 

In a recent series of posts, Ken at  Popehat went through a detailed analysis of The Anatomy of a Scam.  In the scam Ken describes, there’s nothing legitimate about the scammers efforts at all.  He’s just a scoundrel.

But this involves well-known corporations that produce real products, and yet engage in widespread and overwhelmingly embraced deception of a magnitude that dwarfs the low rent scoundrel.  For a free blender, all you need to do is show how much you love them.  Hardly much of a price to pay for a freebie.

Which brings us to the one things that hasn’t changed since I learned of the great swag being thrown at mommy bloggers: Why is it that lawyers are still deemed so inconsequential that no one throws anything good our way?  We could learn to love you too.

* As for my running battle with the nice folks at KitchenAid who happily took my money but found it inconvenient to satisfy their obligations, though they did apologize for the inconvenience, they have yet to perform their end of the contract and continue to keep my money and ignore me.  On the bright side, my experiment in using social media as a means of addressing their failure to honor their obligations continues, and it appears that significant headway has been made in alerting others that, as much as KitchenAid loves your money, they want nothing to do with standing behind their very expensive products.  The experiment continues, as does some more conventional means of teaching sellers a lesson in honoring commitments.