To be fed up of Instamums 2

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Continued from original post...

@Organgesamphore - can you link to the current guidance that you refer to.

Are you saying that if someone accepts a holiday in say, a villa from a for profit business without payment being exchanged and constantly mentions it in posts and uses the company's hashtag and refers to the company's name constantly on social media that it's classified as editorial?? Or the same with a household appliance or product?
Why then do some bloggers clearly state that the product, appliance, holiday was gifted and others don't. Don't you think the transparent bloggers who are upfront are more credible ?

It's also worth remembering that just as journalists have received free products / press trips / lunches etc over the years and only written about a fraction of those, bloggers and instagrammers can and do exercise the same integrity.

Yep that's pretty much it dilly. Like I said upthread, individual bloggers and instagrammers are setting their own rules for editorial integrity just as traditional media did in the past. Some are more transparent than others.

The only official guidance that exists is the ASA guidance linked to upthread.

We'll agree to disagree OrangeSamphire. I think you're incorrect with what you're saying.

I'm going on experience of working with clients who both pitch editorial and buy advertising in traditional and social media.

You may not agree with the ethics of how advertising and editorial works in the media. Many don't. And I certainly agree it's a debate worth having.

It's the complete misunderstanding of feminism that winds me up the most about this sort of thing, so misunderstood that it actually verges on misogyny. "You're a woman so you can't say anything that doesn't support me, regardless of what I'm actually doing". Second place to that is the attitude of "they're all jealous" - actually no, but what I would like is for you (the general you) to acknowledge the privileged position you're in to be going to all these festivals etc for free.

In my view, a lot of the instamums I follow actually come across as very careful with their children - yeah there might be the odd photo but we very rarely know their names, where they are, what they're up to etc, unless it's directly relevant and coinciding with what the mum is doing. Youtubers are a different game - the family who just had the new baby aren't so bad but I suppose that could just be compared to the ridiculous example of the Irish family. Those children are who I reserve my sympathy for - video footage and the intensity of it at such a young age is massively intrusive. But it's another sycophantic circle jerk where any criticism, even slight criticism, is a direct personal insult against them and their grandmother's sainted aunt.

I don't understand hate following??? Surely that isn't a real thing? Why would you waste your time!

Ive been following this from first thread, I have issue with using 'the family as a brand' so do not follow any 'insta mums' but liked reading mother pukka take on it and liked how open she has been with replying and wanting to engage on here. Unlike other mum who bashed mumsnet! My main issue is with advertising on Instagram and i do enjoy scrolling throu and follow a few people, is i like to follow peoples lifes but if someone is making ad is it their life or is it just something to make money, is that person saying its great because they choose it or it was offered to them, i think that makes the difference, because its not about their life as their life is getting directed , also so they do things in life beacuse they r choosing or because they have been offered something in return. Not sure ive made my self very clear! But been long weekend and tired!

Also i really dislike the term' influencer ' to me its just an interactive advertising board

I think MOD and FOD seem like decent nice people. But I also think they've got a bit swept up in this to the extent that I no longer trust them as a brand.

Their recent Martinhal family holiday was the final straw. They both made numerous posts about how ideal the facilities, accommodation, setting was. But they were misleading their followers by not being honest about the fact that Martinhal had given them "help with funding the holiday" (a comment by MOD that was later deleted I think). Not a single post of theirs had made this clear or was hastagged as #ad or #spon.

As a follower of them, I had no idea if they were obliged to say positive things about Martinhal (but it seems highly likely that they were).

I think it's great for them that they get to go on so many holidays a year. But families who can only afford one holiday who then save up for a Martinhal one off the back of this (unreliable) recommendation - it's very unfair.

If MOD and FOD had been upfront from the start and said that they hadn't paid for the holiday, followers would be much more informed. What they did there (and with other things) is misleading and sneaky and really really unfair on their followers (who I really hope will be going to find unbiased reviews elsewhere before they book their holidays)

mother pukka I commented earlier in the other thread about children maybe suing their parents in the future (others may have said this too but I'm not sure). Anyway I just wanted to clarify that my comment personally wasn't with regards to inta-mums per se but was more a musing about children on social media in general. I for one am also guilty of this - I post pics and videos of my toddler on Facebook and Instagram. I was just wondering aloud about how our children's generation will respond to it all when they come of age. Hope my comment didn't cause any pangs of mum guilt for anyone - we all have far too much of that already I'm sure!

The one who I had to unfollow was Charlotte Taylor I came across her through searching for Slimming World ideas. pretends to be poor yet has been to Florida pays for private nursery is renovating her house goes on weekends away without the kids to concerts etc etc she's also the only person who's ever had a baby that's needed surgery, a son that goes to stay with his real dad at weekends and been on a diet. She loves the victim status. She lasted about 10 days before I could take no more !!! I do like Mummy Daddy Me and Brummy Mummy they are honest and make me laugh and Katie Ellison is a true professional.

I think SV is hilarious on insta and I love her stories. But she clearly has a nasty side to her (maybe we all do a bit?) by slating the whole of MN before even reading the thread. She's let herself down a bit?

She did a similar thing when a former Big Brother contestant was on daytime TV recently. SV laid into her for various reasons and then snootily made fun of the girl's "Dorothy Perkins dress". People actually stood up to SV this time and she ended up doing some tearful insta story feeling sorry for herself and deleting the post in question. What she should really have done is apologise- we all make mistakes. She missed the mark and she was unnecessarily cruel about someone.

I'm definitely a bit jealous ...but I did think it was slightly unnecessary for her to mention that Greg has lots of rental properties the other day. I suppose that's her life tho and we do like our instagrammers to be 'real', so I can see it's a thin line to tread.

Mod at one point referenced martinhal when questioned and said they got offered a very good deal, but this comment seemed to disappear. Fod pleaded poverty by having to take cheap flights at 2am. And they had the Greek villa, the cruise and another trip coming up. It's all a bit much when it's not clear it's freebies etc. It's also going to be hard to take genuine recommendations seriously as no one will know whether they've been bought to say it or not.

I think mod or fod's reference to a good deal was that the accommodation was a gift but they had to pay for flights, food and activities themselves. This revelation came at the end of a week of promotion and several queries as to weather they paid for it themselves.

It's like FOD's ad for boots, he showed their bedtime curly hair routine with brushes and plaits etc then asked for tips with curly hair. Loads of people then sharing tips and suggesting tangle teezers. Notice by chance a few days earlier mod's posting she's using daughter's frozen tangle teezer as she's left her expensive one at home. It's all getting a bit contrived. I guess the reason people care is a) are we being conned and b) they seemed such a lovely normal family

Susie, if you're still reading..your American mater accent started off strong but it's "zeeebra" 😂

Idk I just can't relate to bitching about your kids while on your second exotic vacation of the year before going back to your new 7 bedroom 4 bath or whatever. Sorry. So the "just like you" comraderie thing is lost on me there.
By the time an IG amasses a large following and starts paid promotions, it just feels slick, false, contrived, commercial, and ick. The cultish hive-minded followers don't help. I ran into this with makeup youtubers who used to feel real and comfortable and who did it purely for the love and enjoyment and you could feel that. Once a lot of money came into the picture it felt..forced and "plastic" if that makes sense. Now it just feels like the newest advertising scheme and it's getting old

Amen to GlamorousGlitter's post. In the 2 years of having my daughter I've only fallen foul to buying 3 items as a DIRECT result of #ads (still too much) but I WISH the honesty factor was there. Had I known they only thought the product was worth talking about because it was free I wouldn't have bothered. I have a relatively small insta documenting my daughter and selling her preloved bits and I always share and rave when I find a "home-made-mum-brand" I think like minded mums would like. But that's my hard earned money I've spent... And it's gone into the pockets of a hard working small business owning mum. There's a lot if irresponsibility on the part of these instamums.

I have bought items relating to a hobby through brand "ambassadors" on Instagram. However, they are clear from their bios that they are ambassadors. I bought the items because they photographed them in use, and they looked good. I don't regret any of those purchases, because I love the products I now have. Because they are small brands I guess, doing advertising in that way? But it was all transparent from the off.

I've bought clothes after seeing them on fashion Instas and it doesn't bother me at all that these women have either been paid or given the clothes as they're upfront about it.

I'm very pro advertising, just anti greedy people getting freebies and trying to pull the wool.

There's hundreds of messages on these two threads and a really interesting and mostly respectful discussion has developed, which provides useful feedback for these instagram accounts going forward. The general consensus forming seems to be that most people don't mind #ad's and appreciate instamums have to make a living, but they really don't like being sneakily misled e.g. about holidays (that were in fact free but haven't been labeled as such).

Of all the hundreds of messages here, there's only a couple of them were genuinely nasty and uncalled for (eg comment about someones kids not being cute). Thats really not reflective of the discussion but certain instamums seem to be focusing on this anomaly and wiping their followers up to condemn 'haters' on MN (forgetting that many of their instafollowers are also on MN!!).

Maybe these instamums struggle with any form of criticism, seen as they get waves of praise on insta. For instance - It seemed odd when MOD was posting how upset she was about a couple of negative reviews of her book on amazon. She surely can't have expected everyone to give her book five stars? Some people didn't enjoy the book. If they are respectful about it, that doesn't make them 'haters' etc. Theyre just posting their feedback? I can't understand why a load of MOD's followers (who surely have their own far worse issues to contend with that a three star review on Amazon) are then posting ridiculously OTT comments about how amazing MOD is and how unfair people are (...to have reviewed a book!?!),

Back again.

Here's the link to the ASA for complaints:

www.asa.org.uk/

If the insta--person is US-based, tina.org (truth in advertising) is doing really good work in this area - they've take on Kim K. in the past.

I really don't get why an instaceleb wouldn't want to be as ethical and transparent as possible about sponsored ads etc. It's the right thing to do after all?

Here's some of the instaslebs we've found stealth selling for multi-level marketing companies.

Dan Osborne - Herbalife (has not disclosed what his exact relationship his with the company - i.e. are they paying him?)

Tori Spelling - Nuskin (as above)

Cherry Menlove - Ariix (as above, does not mention Ariix by name but is def selling for them and possibly recruiting too)

Taya blue - Nuskin (as above, also carefully keeps any mention of brand name off her insta)

I have zero sympathy for people with money trying to pull other people who can't afford to lose it into mlms. grah.

I have read both threads on this.
As you can see by my MN name I'm a blogger, a mummy blogger if you will.
I don't class myself as an instamum, but I know those who do.

It may surprise you to know, I don't 100% disagree with those of you with issues with instamums.
I do agree some bloggers tarnish what others are doing by spamming feeds with constant ads and promos for brands and companies. It gets on my nerves too and I do agree with some of the comments regarding certain fellow bloggers.

I have also typed up a quick blog regarding this, but once again, so I'm not tarnished with others labels, I didn't do an "angry reply post", I merely stated what my opinion is, and I think fellow bloggers will be surprised that I don't agree with them entirely, and instead, agree with some of you.

I do feel certain bloggers have lost their way and forgotten why they write. I most certainly would use a massive following to spread awareness of the campaigns I started out writing about-and would hope, even with a massive following, I'd never lose that side of my work-regardless of how many "product" Opportunities came my way. I'd rather use a massive social media following to aid the reason I began writing.

On the other side-I feel some of you have done yourselves no favours with just how mean you've been towards bloggers-they're as human as you and me and no one deserves to have their character or lives judged by people sat behind a keyboard, in the way some of you have!

Mainly I just think-if you don't like what you see, don't follow, it really is that simple!

There's a lot tonight on the vein of "if you don't like unfollow" and whilst I do agree with that, I think there is something to be said about people questioning the ethics around these influencing bloggers and instagrammers, and emotional and vulnerable parents who can follow them. If we all just unfollowed and turned a blind eye, well then who would start the ball rolling on changes, or question what was happening?

OrangeSamphire - I'm sure you're right about the law but behaving in an ethical manner is about more than following the ASA guidelines. Everyone here is saying a £7000 free holiday (kastelli house) feels a lot like being paid to advertise things, so it's clearly time the ASA updated their guidance in this area.)

I think the problem with accepting free stuff is you lose sight of the value of things. I saw SV talking about a nice lunchbox. It looked great so I clicked through. This nice kid's lunchbox cost £29!!! Of course it's a fucking nice lunch box at that price. She posted about it on her blog and gave it a good review, in a post that says "a lovely woman got in touch to ask if I might like to team up with the brand she works for" - but no more, so maybe she did "borrow her boyfriend's bank card to pay for it".

I suspect she didn't pay for it and so the review is complete nonsense compared to the (very detailed!) discussion we had on mumsnet last week about expensive lunchboxes and are they worth it, because there's no discussion of how much things cost and how they compare to other things you could buy for that price in the realm of lunchboxes.

Just one example.