The Real Jenty

This post has been brewing for a few weeks now, but after a discussion with a blogging friend this week, I believe it needs to be written.  The blogging landscape in South Africa is changing, and we’re starting to see companies paying bloggers for content more and more often.  Now that’s great, I’m all for that, hell, I love that we’re finally getting recognition that we have a voice and that we have a listening audience, and that our audience is the same as the ones that brands advertise to on TV etc.

This however, raises a few issues that I feel need to be aired.  Local bloggers are not as “wise” as overseas bloggers yet, when it comes to being sponsored by corporates and brands, and we need to start getting wise… FAST!

Local bloggers normally do this for the love of it, they’re not earning a lot of money from blogging, so the vast majority have full time careers.  Those careers are important.  They’re what brings in the main revenue in the household.  My message is the following…

Don’t jeopardise your day job because of a carrot that is being dangled in front of you by a corporate.

Be aware of the impact of what you blog about.

This might seem logical, but seriously, please think about the company that is asking you to advertise on your blog.

If the company is in any way a competitor of the company that you work for, don’t do it!  It’s not worth the little bit of money they’re going to pay you for your sponsored blogpost or the banner they’re going to stick on your site.

When you sign your contract of employment, one of the clauses normally stipulates that you cannot earn money outside your workplace, and if you are allowed, it says that it can’t be a conflict of interest.  In addition, your company may or may not have a Social Media policy which defines what you can or cannot say in a social space about the company, your work and your industry.

Therefore, if a company approaches you and offers you money for you to write a blog post about one of their products, and that product is similar to something that your own employer sells or provides as a service… don’t even go there!! It’s a conflict of interest… you can get disciplined or even fired for it.

Now some of you are probably saying, who is she to say this?  How on earth are they going to find out?

Part of what I do, in my day job, is monitoring social spaces for mentions of my company.   More and more companies are doing ORM (online reputation management) to monitor mentions of their brand online, they have to. Companies run software (or they outsource it) that pick up mentions of certain words in all social spaces and they get tracked and reported on.

Companies are becoming aware of the power of social media locally.  They understand that your blog/tweet is being watched by plenty of people, and not only that, it can be shared.  So what you say is not only being heard by the people who follow you, but potentially by the people that follow your followers too!  And that’s power.  That can affect a brand.  It can affect buying patterns.

Understand, as someone taking part in social spaces, that you have power.  People are listening to you all the time.  Understand why you can’t blog about a competing product… it can possibly damage the brand you work for.

That will jeopardise your job.  Just be careful.

This post is mostly about blogging, but this could be said for other social spaces too.  Let me know in the comments if you want me to explain a little more.

Oh and to end off, please also remember that if a company has asked you to blog about their product, it’s good blogging etiquette to have a disclaimer at the bottom of the post stating that fact… or else you will lose credibility pretty quickly.

I just read a tweet that said “I don’t know how I would pass time without twitter” and it got me thinking.

I’m seriously addicted to Twitter, some days are worse than others.

I get all my news from Twitter.  Twitter is how I’m following the World Cup games because we have the only office in the building without a TV, and my desk at home is upstairs and I can’t see the TV.  Twitter is where I get my answers… it’s my Yellow Pages… it’s my first port of call before Google. It’s my SMS line (I don’t use SMS’es I contact everyone via Twitter or FB or email or Skype or BBM etc etc, but not SMS).  It’s my blogger friend update line. It’s my learning channel.

So, what would I do without it?  Probably watch more TV and use more Skype and go back to using online forums.  Seriously though, if Twitter failed completely one day, there will be something that everyone will move to… maybe Plurk will become big again?  You never know

And that’s all I can think of.

How would you get by?

On Wednesday evening I got a very odd phone call.  It was from Joey, who owns Ultimate Functions, to tell me that someone had used her photos on their website, and she’d noticed that one of my photos was there too.

After looking at the Perfect Kids Party site later, I saw that she was right.  A photo of a cake, that I’d taken at a party last year, was on this website’s cake-gallery.  But this “woman” didn’t just download my photo, all she’d done was display a photo from Google images and she’s linked directly to my website.  This means that anyone who clicked onto the photo, would come to my blog.

It’s not just that she stole the photo, that makes me as mad as hell, it’s that she’s implying that she made the cake.  She’s selling a skill that she doesn’t necessarily have.  It’s fraud!

Anyhoo, after checking out all the other photos on the site, I realised that it wasn’t just me. She’d also used photos of events done by Monkey Magic and she’d used cakes from overseas cake companies and blogs too.

So, on Thursday morning, I decided to phone her.  And she put the phone down in my ear when she heard what it was about!! Man, there’s nothing that makes me more livid!  She didn’t even listen to me, and thought I was Joey on the phone… she told me she’d removed that photo and slammed the phone down!

COW!

Then I got angry.  If she was just ignorant about photo usage, surely she would have removed all the images that she’d stolen after she’d received the first phone call!!

So, I’ve now contacted every single other company that she’s stolen images from too.  Monkey Magic quickly changed their image, so that there’s a massive STOLEN written across their image; but because of the way she’d linked to mine and Google has cached it, I haven’t been able to do the same.  I’ve also contacted Jozikids, where she is listed, because it seems she used some of their other images too; as well as Party Craze an Australian cake website, the Baking Shop, and Wonderful Wortel World

I’ve got a letter that’s ready and prepared to send to her ISP, but have decided to wait until tomorrow before sending it.  And that’s only because I spoke to her again on Friday night and she told me that after speaking to Merle from Jozikids that she agreed to remove them all, but she hasn’t got internet access until Monday.

She has until 8am tomorrow morning, or else her ISP will definitely know about it!!

How STUPID can one person be?! She’s destroyed the reputation of her fledgling business completely.

From looking at her Perfect Kids Party site, there’s no way to tell now which parties she’s actually done.  Maybe every single one of the photos is fraudulent, and she just got lazy when putting the page together and started linking sites instead of downloading photos.  I sure wouldn’t believe another word that came out of that woman’s mouth!

I’m so so mad, and really need to blog, but I really don’t have time.

I’ve got a shoot to get out, a shoot in the morning and I went on an awesome workshop today that I need to blog about too.

I’m going to blog tomorrow… the whole saga about the stupid cow who stole my photo!

aka can’t I split myself in two?!!

I’ve taken the day off on Friday. I booked myself on another wedding photography workshop and I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks.

And then, it happened.  It was guaranteed to happen.  I get torn between 2 things.

You see, last week there was a blanket drive on Twitter, and because of my blog post about the D Hani Creche in Soweto a few months ago, the school was chosen as the recipient of all the blankets collected at the rugby on Saturday and at the #TBD in Sandton… and I’m thrilled that Mme Dipho is going to be able to try give a blanket to every child in the informal settlement.

However… they’re going to hand the blankets out on Friday… the SAME day!! I want to take photos there damnit!!

I was hoping that I’d be able to do both, but after reading the program just now, it’s going to be impossible.

I wish I could split myself in two

Maybe another blogger should do the creche story… I’m so sad I’m missing it though

… and I’m in!!

I know it’s not like going out into the country, but seriously, a few nights away would just be awesome… and we could catch a show… just wander around… maybe book some time at a spa… and just spend time by ourselves!  Sounds divine, and it sounds especially divine after the crap traffic this evening that ended up causing me to get home after 7pm!! Can you say stress?!!

Anyhoo, here are the details:

Southern Sun announced last week the opening of their latest hotel on 24^th April, the Southern Sun Montecasino.

What’s really cool is that they’ve opened up a competition to bloggers!  Just think, how awesome it would be for some of the other city bloggers to win this and to come up for a weekend and meet all us awesome Jozi bloggers!!  So get to it, and write your blog post!!

Here’s the deal.  Blog about the Southern Sun Montecasino opening

1. In the blog post mention that this competition is open to all bloggers

2. Answer the 6 easy questions

3. Send the blog post link to sheenag@aquaonline.com to tally all entries

Questions are as follows:

1.       What is the opening rate special?

2.       Where has the latest Southern Sun opened? (they opened on 24^th April)

3.       Who is the General Manager of the hotel?

4.       How many rooms are there in the new hotel?

5.       When is their room service available? [How many hours a day?]

6.       Which item would you most like to order off the Punchinello’s menu?

*Hint: visit the website and download the fact sheet for more info.

On Friday 14^th May, one blogger will be chosen to win a weekend stay at Southern Sun Montecasino for 2 adults sharing, bed and breakfast and dinner to the value of R200 each.

Terms & Conditions:

Subject to availability, not applicable during 2010 World Cup

Children under 18 sharing parents’ room stay and eat breakfast free

Valid for 6 months from date of issue

Winners need to make their own travel arrangements to the hotel.

One of the things I normally miss when going on holiday is the current news of the goings on in the world.  Not this time however, and it was such a different experience that I needed to blog about it.

OK, you all know how much I love twitter etc, but seriously, it was the only way we got news of what was going on with the world this time.

Twitter peeps tweeted about the political goings on with Malema and the ET debacle etc etc etc as it was happening… then I went looking for more in-depth articles to read up more about it.  And every single time, the best source I found, that was the fastest… with the most comprehensive news… was The Daily Maverick.

Maybe it’s because I follow a few of their journalists on Twitter, so I got the links too… but seriously, the coverage of the current news on that site was phenomenal compared to all the other news sites.

So thanks all my tweeting peeps, and the guys at Daily Maverick, for helping me stay informed.

So now, I’ve subscribed to their First Thing newsletter too… it’s awesome… you get the news that happened overnight in a newsletter when you wake up in the morning!

You might have noticed that I’ve fixed a few things…

I’m still eagerly waiting for my new blog design… can’t wait!

I actually missed something in the local blogging scene!! That hasn’t happened in a while

There’s a new blog aggregation service called Myscoop.

So, for all you local blogging types, it’s got real-time aggregation and a very easy to use search facility.  I like it!  It’s an easy way to look for other bloggers who write about similar things to you and connect to them.

Link your blog there, and let me know, and I’ll follow you.

YAY!! I’ve finally done it… I’ve finally got myself my own domain for my personal blog

I’ve imported all the posts from my old blog… so please reset your feeds to read from this RSS feed instead

This theme is not the final one… it’s a temporary one until my Judith Shakes one is finished, I’m just too impatient to wait.  I also haven’t done the blogroll on here yet, so if you feel you’d like your blog listed, holler!