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lists

Why Lists Matter

Earlier this week Babble named a list of the 100 top mom blogs. Just a few moments after it went live twitter was bubbling over with congratulations for the winners (most often from the winners to others). A lot of the noise around the Babble list from those not listed is how much lists don’t matter, how they are divisive and never showcase anyone with talent and they’re rigged because the people deciding have a horse in the race.  

All those things might be true to a very limited extent but the reality is that lists do matter.

If you suspect that I’m bitter about not making the Babble list this year, you’d be wrong. Am I disappointed? Absolutely. Do I need to up my game? Yes. If you didn’t make that list and you think you belong there then I have one recommendation for you. Write better. 

Would I say that there are fundamental flaws in how a list of 100 top mom bloggers is determined? I could try to make that argument, but I won’t. It wouldn’t be an honest discussion.

The women listed on the top 100 list are good quality bloggers. They’ve worked hard and shared their year with their audiences. 

Blogging has landed me on plenty of lists. Nielson and Babble put me on lists and then RedTri and MomDot got in on the action. If I want to say that Babble’s 2011 list is irrelevant then I’d best be prepared to say that those previous accolades were all garbage and I’m simply not prepared to say that.

Let’s face it, lists matter. People who want to work with bloggers don’t necessarily know the mom blogging community. The people who want to hire bloggers don’t want to read our blogs. Not only is that okay, but it’s good. Bloggers need infusions of outside dollars, we can’t spend our days paying one another.

I don’t think it’s lazy publicists who will target these 100 women for the next calendar year. I think it will be smart publicists. Well, one of my friends totally disagrees, she only wants to work with “second tier bloggers” because they’re easier to deal with (and no, I’ll never tell you who she is).

Erin will tell you that the lists don’t matter because Erin is on the list this year and it’s the polite thing to say when the rest of your community clearly didn’t make “the list”.

Let me be the friend who tells you when you’ve got toilet tissue stuck to your shoe. Don’t be the blogger that complains about being overlooked. The lists all matter. Someone’s got to be the best. This year it wasn’t me, and I’m not going to pretend like someone made a mistake. I’m just going to work harder and I challenge you to do the same.