My morning today started off the same: breakfast with the kids and getting them off to school, morning coffee and morning emails. What made this morning different was an email tipping me off to my first “highjacked” blog post (you know who you are, tipper,- thank you!).
Last November I wrote a blog post sharing a family recipe for Sparkling Cranberry Punch that family and friends have enjoyed in my home at Thanksgiving for almost a decade, with photos I shot myself. Hours of my time, if not an entire day, went into the photo shoot and writing for this blog post.
Who Is Toni Spilbsbury?
And in one mouse-click it was copied by another blogger, photos and all. With the addition of a short intro (a sentence or two) from this blogger, their post was an exact carbon copy of mine (say copy-and-paste everyone).
To be honest, I don’t even have a problem with this. In fact, I’m overjoyed and honored that someone found my recipes and photos interesting enough to post on their blog.
The problem I had is there were no links whatsoever to my website. And the one mention of me as the creator mispelled my name!
Twitter Etiquette
To make this matter worse, I checked out this blogger on Twitter- 165,000 followers. Good for her… seriously. So, when she tweeted about “her” blog post for Sparkling Cranberry Punch, is it just me, or would proper etiquette be to mention me in the tweet? A small token for using my hard work? The fact is that I’m still building my Twitter following. So, I’m thinking that an entire day of my work is worth at least a @mention in return, right?
If I’m not right please feel free to comment below because I’m not an expert on Twitter etiquette, but like to think I know something about common sense.
What Is Blogging?
For me, blogging is creating. I’m creating menus, creating recipes, creating photo shoots and writing which is the essence of creating. When I look at my photos from Sparkling Cranberry Punch I think of the fact that was my first photo shoot with my first professional camera and how difficult it was for me to shoot while my daughter was pouring. I think of how many friends and family have enjoyed this punch in my home and how much work went into it for me.
So what is blogging really? I hear this morning that this type of “blogging” (highjacking) is common and that many bloggers simply copy and paste content from other websites as part of their blog.
I think this is entirely different than doing a “review”. A review, from my brief experience, is the bloggers “take” on a product, or work. In fact, here is a brilliant and well-written review of The Organized Cook from 100Directions.com titled “Leftovers Are Not The Enemy“. What’s so authentic about her post- other than the fact that it’s indeed… authentic- is that I couldn’t have titled it better myself. She used graphics she created herself and her review was from such a personal perspective. She even used her own food photos when she could have very appropriately used mine.
So how does the “blogosphere” world feel about this type of blogging? Am I being whiney? I honestly don’t mean to be. Like I said before, I’m working to build a following, so copy away!… I think? The only payment need be are some links and mentions.
All Is Good In The Neighborhood- or is it?
Instead of firing off a cease and desist letter or something of that nature, I simply emailed the blogger. I’m happy to report they responded back and have since created appropriate links to my website and are sending out a token “tweet” today stating,
“We received your message this morning, and apologize for any confusion. We’ve updated the link to your site, and added more references to you. Please take a look and let us know if this looks good. We are more than happy to edit the post in any way you’d like, or add more info about your amazing blog. We are huge fans of your site and thought that……readers would love your recipe!“
I offered in the future to simply email me and I would be happy to explore even providing a guest post for them in the future.
Am I being a pushover? Am I basically saying, “for more photos, content and recipes for your blog, visit ToniSpilsbury.com?”. At least my name is spelled correctly… and the link works.
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