Starting university obviously means meeting new people. For the people on my course (journalism) I usually explain what experience I've had and that means telling them about my blog. Before this, my blog was pretty much a secret and was only known by those who had stumbled upon it. Anyway, most of them are intrigued (some are a bit stuck up and claim that beauty journalism isn't real journalism) and they do ask me questions.. The main one being 'oh, so you get free stuff?' And I hate it when they do. I don't class it as 'free stuff' and to me, what I receive are PR samples. I also get questions like 'I want free stuff, how do I get it?' And I have to explain that 1. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment and 2. If you're going to start blogging just for the samples, you might as well not bother.
I've always kept what products I get sent to me a secret. Sometimes I'll say things along the lines of 'this was sent to me' and give it away but the majority of the time, I don't let you guys know when I have been sent something. Mainly because I don't believe it makes a difference. If I don't like something (regardless of whether it's free or not) I will say I don't like it. The reason I started up this blog is because I was fed up of being told a load of lies by the media on what works and what doesn't, what's good and what's not. So I wanted to help others out and I hope you understand that. Personally, I believe my blog would suffer without the samples. I just wouldn't have the money to go out and purchase a lot of things that feature on my blog.
I'm not going to write a big long post about PR samples as I know it's been covered a lot. Here are a few links to my favourites:
But I just wanted to get your thoughts and opinions on them. Do you think they make a difference to how a blog is run? If you know a product is a PR sample will it change the way you view the review?
xxx