This big ol’ blogging world can be a tough one to navigate at times. Even with 6 years (6 YEARS CAN YOU ADAM AND EVE IT?!) of experience under my belt; writing little book reviews as a side hobby at first, owning a business which required working with a lot of bloggers, then blogging as my job, I still find myself staring at my screen going “eh?” at times.

It can be seriously hard to keep up with the trends, the latest new app, the latest disclosure guidelines (don’t start) all the while maintaining your blog, trying to write relevant blog content and keep up to date with the blogging community. How any of us do it, I’ll never know.

Yes, blogging can be a lot of hard work but I love it. I love (almost) every aspect of it (aside from taking photos – bane of my LIFE) but you definitely do have to be vigilant, as you do in most aspects of life. Because the blogging world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

People playing the follow/un-follow game

I know, it’s old and it’s boring now but people are still doing it. Imagine THAT being your life. We all want to grow our social media following but there’s ways to do it. And continuously following and un-following people isn’t it. I keep on top of this by using a few free apps, where you can see who’s un-followed you and if I notice the same person cropping up over and over again, they get an instant block. I ain’t got no time for that.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism can be a huge problem if it happens to you – thankfully I’ve never experienced it but I’m well aware of bloggers I follow who have spoken up about it on Twitter, about how certain individuals are stealing their content word for word and posting it on their own blogs or taking their Instagram photos and re-posting them on their accounts. It’s an incredibly petty thing to do and often, the culprits have rather lame excuses like, “I just wanted to create a blog but didn’t know where to start!” *eye roll*

Dodgy PR’s, brands & ‘business opportunities’

I’m sure most of us could go on huge rants about this one but I’ll keep it short for the sake of this post. Working with brands and building a relationship with PR agencies and individuals within those agencies is brilliant but if you work with brands regularly, you need to watch out for the wrong’uns. For example, offering you money off of their products in exchange for a review is not an opportunity. It’s a joke. Nor is being asked to pay for postage or being asked to send the product back afterwards (yes, I was actually asked that once!)

Not being paid

Unfortunately I did experience this last year – twice. Thankfully however, it wasn’t anything highly substantial like some bloggers have seen but it still happened. It was still annoying. I worked on two blog posts which I never, ever saw payment for despite emailing the agency multiple times and even ringing one of them on one occasion. The man on the phone was incredibly unhelpful and sounded like he found the situation almost humorous! But just be aware and only work with people you trust.

Drama Llamas

In a community this big, you’re always going to meet some Drama Llamas. Individuals who seek out things to negatively comment on, have nothing nice to say to anyone and those who will truly make a mountain out of a mole hill and cause an uproar when one wasn’t needed. All I can suggest, is stay away from them. Block, mute and don’t engage.

Have you ever experienced anything like this? Anything else to add about the “darker” side of blogging? I’d love to hear your experiences about anything mentioned above!