A long time internet player, eBay power seller, Jessica Gottlieb burst into the ‘Mommy Blogging’ world as the woman behind (or was it in front) of the Motrin Moms debacle. Prior to writing her own blog, as she states, she wrote for Celsias.com and Ecochildsplay.com (the last article I find there dates back to October of 2009). A west coast liberal disenfranchised conservative mom Jessica has a press page , chock full of Motrin links, Dr Phil appearances and quite a bit more. Neilsen named her a Power Mom 2 years running , and Babble put her in the top 50. Then Forbes put her in the Power Women 14 To Follow On Twitter. She’s now a part of the Momversation ( The site says that : “Momversation is a video show and website that brings together outspoken moms who want to talk about what matters to them. Each episode features four mom-bloggers introducing a topic and sharing their thoughts. “)
Jessica’s blog Jessica Gottlieb has been live since July of 2008, according to her archives. Apparently testing the waters early with only 4 posts, she’s now regularly posting about her family, and more. So much more that at times it makes my head spin. Sightly irreverent humor mixed with west coast snark highlight her postings. One of her earlier posts, Promoting Your Product in Three Easy Steps: Email, Send, Pimp had me at hello. The Motrin thing came along soon after, and the press descended, and the twitter chatter, and more. She’s everywhere.
I’ve been online since Al Gore invented the Internet, but I’d never personally interacted with Jessica. So I made it my business to find out more. We’ve had a few brief online conversations, exchanged a couple of emails, even chatted on the phone a few times. But can I call her a friend? I don’t think so, we’re acquaintances. There’s nothing wrong with that. I keep up with what she’s up to, not sure she gives a flip about what I’m doing. No harm no foul. I don’t hang on every word, I grew up years ago.
Jessica is no fool. She’s been around the block. And she’s smart. Crazy smart. (Do you think she calls her self a Mommy Blogger because it looks good on her?) But when she gets a burr in her bra, look out! Remembering she’s an Alpha Mom and likely to take out after me, I’ll give you an example. In September of 2009, she dropped a short and not so sweet post, Twitter Parties Are Stupid, a day later Three Ways To Make Your Twitter Party Not Suck. The first tip, in effect, simply says don’t do it. This month, as part of a post on Hash tag Spam, Jessica takes on Twitter Parties again. Though the post has some interesting points, her assertion that ” if your party only lives on twitter… well, congratulations, you are a spammer.” leaves me a little less than impressed. While the statement is logically formed, it might be more of a red herring than anyone, especially Jessica would like to admit. So , Jessica, I have a question..do you know that any of these twitter party hash tags only live on twitter? for fact? Have you spoken with Amy Lupold Bair about her Company, Resourceful Media, LLC and what they do with Twitter Parties and Site Warmings? (Amy pioneered the Twitter Party and Site Warmings) I’ll go out on a limb and say probably not. (If you have, please let me know)
My assertion is this: It’s called Link-bait. In its finest form.
A quick search yeilded 226,000 entries. (go figure) Its popular and it works. Lots of people use link bait, there’s nothing wrong with it, if you use it properly. For some folks it brings a flood of traffic and comments to a blog that can mean a flood of income. For others, its a momentary flash in the pan.
Jessica is skilled at using language. She uses words and phrases well. She can twist a sentence to mean one thing today and another tomorrow. She’s smart like that. She knows how to get attention. (She lives in LA, for gosh sakes, she’s in the thick of it) She knows how to write a headline, craft a story and pimp it. If you’re curious read her blog. You can learn a lot about writing a better blog there. There’s some good lessons about what to do, and some good lessons about what NOT to do. If you’re curious about writing better headlines and using some of the same type link-bait Jessica uses, go read Pro Blogger. Darren’s a master at writing headlines and you can get some great tips. There have been mountains, nay mountain ranges of posts written around link-bait and how to craft posts and titles.
There are lots of people out there who do hang on her every word. There are those who call themselves ‘experts‘ who have adopted somewhat of a plan of attack and I mean literal attack, wherein they try to mimick Jessica’s style. The style she used to go after motrin. They’re missing a few key pieces of the puzzle though and most of their attacks fall flat and just become outright nasty (Read Nestlé social media fore) These people I’ve diagnosed with Gottlieb envy™. I digress.
I’ll caution you though. Jessica’s a force to be reckoned with. If you’re suffering with Gottlieb envy™, if you want to model yourself after her (personally I don’t know why you would, that’s not a slam at Jessica, but why would you want to be anyone but yourself?) do so at your own peril. Unless you’re well connected, schooled in classical snark and able to use your own God given smarts to build an Internet empire, try just being yourself. Your readers, your twitter followers and your face book friends will all appreciate your authenticity .
Does Al Gore have Gottlieb envy™? Probably not. But I am sure he did NOT invent the internet!
EDITORS NOTE : Gottlieb envy™ has been highly evident in the mommy blogging community, post the meteoric rise of Jessica Gottlieb during the #Motrin Moms wave . (If you don’t have a clue about it, Google it) . Jessica wrote some very worthy posts after the wave and continues to verbally fight for issues she has an affinity for. There is no known prescription remedy for Gottlieb envy™, a good healthy dose of self respect is the only known cure.
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I love your nerve.
You can call me any time.
Some big facts are missing. apparently not.Liberal, I am not.my bad I fixed it.i’m crazy about jessica. i’m lucky enough to be very friendly with her. but, i don’t emulate her nor do i have gottlieb envy tm. which, by the way, is very clever!!
i think she is a remarkable and passionate person who stands by what she believes in and does not waver. and she’s helluva personal brand marketer. and i say that with a HUGE disdain towards the expression personal brand.
she rocks the internet. without a doubt.
Like I said, she’s smart. crazy smart!
and she looks cute on t.v when she’s mad.
.-= melissa´s last blog ..Bloggy Branding Bullshit… =-.
now ya got me laughin!
and I’m gonna duck..I feel the eyes on me from wayyyyyyy out west!
Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that at one time I had JG Envy. And, then I spoke to her about a year ago on twitter and figured out she was just a plain ol normal girl like me. I do realize that her writing skills are often much better than mine, but she was nice enough (whatever that means).
And, then, she jumped on my back this week and started riding piggy back and soon she figured out that she had the wrong freakin’ pig. OOPS!
So, I wrote her (and others for that matter), a nice post, you know, making use of the best Twitter Tools out there……this is one @GuyKawasaki sparkled humor with at the Disney Conference. He called it the UFM function.
And, we all know that we all want to try out the latest and greatest Twitter tools around. But, guess what, this one isn’t new, it’s been around forever. UFM! Simple, you don’t like my tweets? You don’t like my subjects? You don’t like my parties? You don’t like me?
Simple enough, Twitter made that an easy fix waaaaaaaaaaay back in the beginning. All you gotta do is unfollow me or UFM. Oh wait, I know why you don’t use that function…………
Shoot, how could I have forgot such an important detail? You don’t want to use the Twitter Function that allows you to UFM because chances are, folks will start unfollowing you and then….guess what…………you have less twitter followers and dadgumit, Brands look at that to see how big of a reach you have.
So, you decide for yourself, are my tweets sooo bad that you would rather unfollow me and risk losing a few followers and maybe a few paid gigs by brands because you have less followers or do you choose to just ignore me, keep me on your list and just ignore my tweets just so you can have a big high number of followers and then big companies think you are someone important.
The thing is, you have to decide if my tweets are so bad that you’d rather lose some sponsorships or if they are just bad enough that you choose to ignore them and keep your numbers up so you can get the good gigs?
If you choose the later, do you think you could just leave me alone and read the tweets, and ignore them as opposed to expecting me to tweet to your liking? just sayin’
@Jerri Ann I was just noticing a few things. I had questions because you have (perhaps had?) a disclosure policy that states, ” This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.” and then goes on to say:
” This blog does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified.”
My question to that, was and still is, why? Why would anyone give editorial license to a brand AND not identify it as such? How is that a good use of your time?
.-= Jessica Gottlieb´s last blog ..Hashtag Spam =-.
I am going to address these one at a time. As usual, you ask good questions but I can explain where and when and why I worded the disclosure as I did.
Originally, the disclosure was one that I just “came upon” through a service like disclosure.org. Originally when I wrote paid posts, some companies said “you must disclose” others said, “please don’t”…so I developed my own wording and a site wide disclosure.
Up until the latest FTC ruckus, I always disclosed by saying, “I was given the opportunity by company x to check out product y and..blah blah blah…..”
Once the FTC kicked into high gear, I left my general site wide disclosure that I had originally made from disclosure.org about 2 or more years ago. And so when companies started making it clear that they had the wording they wanted used in posts regarding them, I started adding that but left my site wide disclosure because I am lazy and honestly, just didn’t bother.
Now, tothe best part, “The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog.”
I was given an assignment over a year ago to review an online service. It didn’t work. As a matter of fact, I tried to use it for over a month, the company who asked me to take on the project put me in direct touch (phone and email) with the tech person for this online company. Still, nothing.
When it was all said and done, I never managed to get the online service to work. And, I did not write the post that I was asked to write and get paid for. I did however, write a post regarding the fact that the technician from that site worked with me for well over 3 weeks trying to help me figure it out. I did NOT submit it as a part of the campaign. I left it as it was, it didn’t work, but they tried. That was the way I left it.
A couple of months later, I received an email from the company who asked me to do the project in the first place and the RE: of the email was “Thanks for Not Blogging About blah blah” and they paid me. So, I sent them an email, reminding them that I did post, and I did say that the service didnt’ work but that the tech tried and put many hours into helping me. I was told that I had fulfilled my expectations by trying the service and I was paid for that, regardless of whether it ever actually worked, I was paid for “trying it”.
With that, I think it is important to note that possibly I was influenced by this because if I even remembered the name of the online service (and I don’t, because literally if I have been to sleep more than once since it happened, chances are, I won’t remember it – that was a joke by the way but I don’t remember who the company was) and someone asked me about it, what would I say?
In my opinion, it’s not terribly negative to say “well it didn’t work for me but the tech person tried really hard”. So, did they influenced my opinion of their company. Absolutely! Did they influence it because they paid me? It’s hard to say because honestly, I wrote “it didn’t work for me but the tech guy tried” and that’s the truth. Would I even remember that now if the company had not paid me? I doubt it..as it is, I can’t seem to remember anyway.
So, I’m not saying that I was given a bottle of dishwashing detergent and it was horrible but because it was free, I just go ahead and write a positive review. Because that’s not the case. The case is, a service that didn’t work for me didn’t necessarily deserve a negative review just because they didn’t work for me, they tried rally hard. But, they did deserve a positive one? Maybe but I wasn’t willing to write it.
And, there are company’s who pay me to put their banners on my site. They may pay me $10 for their banner on my site. And they send me a logo that is 160 by 160 and we just run with it. They are given the opportunity to send me a larger banner but they “choose” to use just the small one. Then, another brand comes along and I offer them, a banner ad, for $10 and I ask them for a logo. They send me one that is 160 by 400. And I put it up. Now, in no way is any of that influenced by anything other than the brand’s choice of the size of banner to use. They both had the option of using a large banner ad for X amount of dollars. One chose a small one, one chose a large one, and with that, you get “This content may not always be identified”.
Does that make sense to you at all?
And a I have rambled, my point is this, I could find the name of the service and the post and all that jazz if I wanted to. And the fact that they paid me for NOT posting is probably the reason I even remember it, otherwise, I probably wouldn’t even recall that episode. So, with that, what they did for me tech wise was influential in my opinion of the actual service.
And, I feel it is absolutely important to say that yes, the actions of the company could reflect what I write (although, it was all done hindsight) in that situation.
Now, I have a couple of questions for you:
1. How does any of this have anything to do with hashtag parties?
2. How does any of this have anything to do with you singling me out the other night and asking what and why I do what I do?
3. When did you become my mother (ha, she only wishes she could influence my behavior) and think that you deserve an answer to my actions?
I’ll give you the last one, you were acting out of good will and questioning my ethics. And, I think I explained that fairly well.
And that takes be to questions 1 and 2? Who made you the keeper of my ethics?
And, if you follow people on Twitter and you don’t like what they have to say, can’t you just use the oldest Twitter Tool around and UFM (unfollow me or who ever you don’t want to read tweets from)?
Being honest, you know what I think? I think you don’t unfollow those people because if you did, you would in turn lose followers and if you lost followers, you would lose your clout. And, so ethically speaking, if you are only following people so they will follow you back and to make you look good to the brands that approach you…..where are your ethics in this? Do you have a disclosure about this somewhere on your blog? Or on your twitter page? I didn’t see one but I could have just missed it.
Would you like for me to help you write that disclosure for your Twitter account?
It would go something like this….
“I follow people and I try to get as many followers as possible. I also do not unfollow anyone because I need to have as many followers as possible so that I appear to be influential to brands. I do however reserve the right to bash you if I don’t like what you are tweeting. But, don’t feel that it is acceptable for you to do the same.”
Would that work for you ethically?
Your turn?
.-= Jerri Ann´s last blog ..Are You Famous? Do You Use Twitter? =-.
Very well said. It’s one thing to be passionate or even loud about something you stand for. It’s another to be aggressive, rude, and ignorant about it. Create discussions, not firestorms. She often has very good points but I find them getting lost among her rants. I saw a few other people point that out in other places too. I have heard many complaints about her in the last 2 years, from her tweets/posts about getting stoned, to her just being mean to others unwarranted. Many people say they can’t get past her frequent use of cuss words. I will be the first to say I don’t exactly have the cleanest mouth BUT very rarely will that come through on the internet, and especially not when I am trying to discuss an issue where I want people to see my side of the story. It’s unnecessary and does little to help your credibility. I honestly can’t hear her side without feeling at least a little like she is threatening ‘You either think like me, or you don’t exist.’ But like you said, It’s her using the alpha voice. It obviously works for her with the followers, the numbers, etc. I do applaud she at least allows the comments against her view on her blog and is open to the dialog. Now whether it is really to debate or if it’s just for traffic/rating purposes, is unknown, but does it really matter? Apparently she is being successful with both.
I don’t like her, I don’t dislike her. I don’t exactly agree with her being the spokes person for ‘mommy blogging’ as some people picture her to be, but I don’t honestly care either. Her presence on the internet only affects me if I let it, and I don’t. If my presents somehow affects her, which it shouldn’t, like Jerri Ann said above. UMF.
Thank you for addressing this Deb and not being afraid to be subjected to the alpha voice.
I’m nothing if not thick skinned. Thanks for your comment too! I don’t think that Jessica is the ‘spokesperson’ for mommy blogging any more than I think that @Dooce is. They’re bloggers oh and by the way, they’re moms.
There are a lot of bullies on the interwebs, a lot of them. I’d be happy to share my email with you sometime. (jk) but..because one’s a bully doesn’t make one right. It just means that they’re a bully. Que Sera, Sera. And life goes on yanno.
Well you know you’ve made it when there is a disease named after you.
Good article and great use of link baiting, Deb!
.-= Sarah Burns´s last blog ..Aloha Friday! What’s Your Wish? =-.
wondered if anyone would finally catch that! Thanks Sarah! You’ve restored my faith…;-)
I hope that I can say what’s on my mind without offending anyone. Note: I did not say without ruffling feathers, or making anyone mad. In my mind, those are two different things. There’s discussion and dialogue and then there’s attacking. IMHO, something that’s been missing a lot from the internet lately is respect. I don’t have to like you, you don’t have to like me, but we can respect each other while we disagree.
.-= Melanie @ Mel, A Dramatic Mommy´s last blog ..Marketing to Mom Bloggers: What Not to Do =-.
Amen! I could not have said it better. The all out attacks have got to stop. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But their opinon does NOT have to be the way things should be. When it starts messing with someone’s business, their income, that’s when my hackles get up… Thanks Mel!