Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Does anyone else notice this blog trend? Unsolicited Email Requests?

Within the last couple of months, I have noticed a lot of unsolicited email requests in my inbox. It is happening almost daily now. All kinds of companies and individuals are requesting that I post about this topic or that topic on my blog. It puzzles me because it seems that none of the topics are related to fiber arts or feltmaking or even handmade. As many of you know who read my blog regularly or even just happen upon it, my blog is primarily about fiber arts, felting, and handmade arts/crafts along with some indie business tips and personal stories (more personal stories now that a baby is on the way!). Most of the email requests that I've received in the last couple of months are for me to post about completely unrelated topics from sources that I'm not familiar with.

I know that people want to solicit as much free advertising as possible and get the word out about themselves and/or their product, but it is almost insulting to be contacted my someone who obviously hasn't read your blog enough to know what you post about. After having an online business for a few years now, I have become quite familiar with the online community of fiber artists and other handmade artists and crafters. I always welcome emails from this community as well as from those who have legitimate questions or comments. I do love to post about handmade happening and the like and am always appreciative of email suggestions for those topics. On the other hand, if you just want a little free publicity for your random topic or unrelated company and know nothing about myself or my blog content, then please don't bother! I'm tired of being contacted over and over to post about something or link to something that has nothing to do with my current blog content.

As most of you know, I am normally not that blatantly outspoken, but as I stated earlier, these unsolicited emails puzzles me. It also makes me wonder if my email address was handed out on some kind of contact list. Is this happening to any of my fellow bloggers out there? Are you also receiving unrelated, unsolicited emails about random postings? Or is it just "lucky" me?

I guess that I'm done ranting for today! I promise to have more positive and informative posts in the future. Hopefully, my next post will be either fiber art or baby related.

3 comments:

  1. I haven't received any but my blog is not as popular as yours. And if I did receive them, I would just delete them.

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  2. I haven't had any yet... but yes that would be quite annoying spam... =/ I look forward to those baby stories... ahh congrats!

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  3. Sort of - I think that a lot of people don't fully "get" marketing and are just taking the wrong tack in getting the word out about their business. I've gotten quite a lot of irrelevant stuff over on my Fat Chic blog. I'm not sure how to address this; it happens because they haven't learned - but it's not like you can teach those unwilling to learn, and is it really your job when you've already got things to do?

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