Come Monday...weekly newsletter

Welcome back to the week and I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend! The winner of the Misikko Flat Iron contest is Zara! Congratulations to her, and thank you to everyone who entered.

I see that many fashion magazines are reporting that "greige" or taupe shades are the in colors this Fall. Below are clippings I took from (l-r) recent Glamour, In Style, and Harper's Bazaar, all letting us know that we need to have this color...now! It's a good thing we're all ahead of the trend and starting buying these shades last year!

I managed to get my first Melmer put together yesterday, and it went much faster and easier than I had anticipated. Now comes the hard part--moving all of my polishes into their new home. I managed to fill this one up already, so I have one more to assemble and then I'll need to pick up several more. One of my cats (the black fur blob) has already claimed this one as her own. I'm a little confused as to what is the best way to place my polishes in the drawers, so I'm just arranging them by brand, then color within the brand, and leaving some space between brands to I won't have to completely rearrange everything when I add more polishes to the drawers after getting new ones. Is that how you manage yours?

In the drama department, I wanted to discuss what's been going on with Ginger & Liz vs. bloggers, because I think as a blogger, these types of actions are things we need to be aware of. As most of you know, the nail polish company Ginger & Liz recently sent a cease and desist order to a blogger threatening legal action if she didn't remove her remarks about their polish being very similar to a couple of other brands. The last time I checked, the First Amendment gives me the right to free expression, at least in the U.S. While bloggers may not be taken seriously by many media outlets and even some companies, they are taken seriously by a more important group when it comes to the companies who furnish the products, and that is the consumer. Along with free speech, the majority of people around the world have free choice when it comes to buying what they want. Making that choice is often accomplished by browsing and researching photos and reviews on the Internet, which is where many blogs prove to be a useful tool to the consumer.

Companies and consumers alike need to remember that blogs contain opinions that are not always definitive answers and facts. As a consumer, one needs to make informed decisions based on a series of opinions and facts before they can determine if a particular product is something they want to purchase. As a company, they need to realize that the Internet has enabled consumers to have more information at hand, making their job a little tougher. They have to be willing and able to defend their position, or they risk losing sales. I'd be willing to bet that as a whole, companies have benefited from bloggers far more than they've suffered because of them. They get free advertising, many times without even asking, they gain exposure to their products and sales, and I know for a fact that they gain repeat sales and customers simply because their products or services were discovered by a consumer reading a blog. If a blogger states an opinion on your product or business practices that you disagree with, you owe it to your customers to dispute that opinion with fact if you feel that their opinion negatively impacts your brand--I should clarify that by saying if it bothers a company enough, they should defend their brand with facts.

Bloggers do have the power to negatively or positively impact a brand, and companies need to understand that it can work to their advantage or disadvantage. If a product or business practice consistently receives negative reviews, that should be an obvious sign to the company that something is wrong. If a company has practices that are consistently questioned, those practices should be defended by the company or handled in a way that isn't threatening to those simply stating their opinions. The FCC placed regulations on bloggers last year to protect the consumer by regulating that bloggers needed to disclose the fact that they received a product in exchange for a review. An ad in a magazine or on TV is assumed to be a paid advertisement, while a blog post is not necessarily interpreted that way to a consumer, so by disclosing, a blogger is letting the reader know that the products in the post were furnished by the manufacturer. That's fine and dandy, and I think any blogger who wishes to have any integrity is not going to promote a product falsely just because they received it at no cost. The comment features of many blogs also allow a consumer to get a sometimes different take on a product, should many of the readers disagree with what a blogger has written.

What's the bottom line here? Bloggers are a growing source of valid information for consumers and a study by The Benchmarking Company's April 2007 Pink Report states that "67% of women who participate in these sites (i.e. blogs) are more likely to buy a beauty product if they read a good review about it from their fellow consumers." 67% is a huge percentage of sales, particularly if the source of your sales is the Internet. Keep in mind that this study was done in 2007 and surely that percentage has increased. If you're going to be in business, you need to take the good with the bad. Just as the power of blogs can increase your sales, they can also decrease them as well. When something you perceive to be bad is mentioned about your company that could negatively impact your sales, you need to step up and defend yourself and your product. If your product is valid and a blogger states otherwise, you need to produce the facts that the consumer has a right to know and defend your position. That's called damage control.

Posted in Come Monday...Newsletter