Blogger Relations: It’s easier than you think…
…but more work than some PR professionals and their clients/companies might be willing to do.
I think as PR professionals we can agree that our profession is broken. And those issues don’t go away just because there’s a new “shiny” way to reach target audiences via social media.
I received three pitches last week and I can tell you that even though all three were personalized and two were well written, I won’t be sharing their news anytime soon (call me gun-shy). Instead, I thought I’d share some tips for blogger relations and getting blog ink. (And yes, some of this is basic common sense.)
First and foremost, every blogger is different…understood? Now, with that in mind some basic steps to blogger relations:
- Read the blog! (and the comments too)
- Know what kind of blog it is (breaking news, tips, opinions, educational, etc.)
- Understand what motivates the blogger
- Know and understand the blogger’s community and what motivates them
- Understand that it is indeed a community and NOT a target audience
- Understand that most blogger’s don’t have an editorial calendar to meet (i.e. most of us are not working on your or your client’s ‘breaking’ deadline)
- Build a relationship and engage with the blogger on their blog and any other social network (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that they belong to
- Build a relationship with the blogger’s community (it’s possible to do, so why not do it?)
- Only pitch news that is relevant and add values to the blogger’s community
- If the blogger gives you ink, be sure to say thank you
- If your news is blogged about—and this is VERY important—be sure to join the conversation!
- Be sure to advise your client to join the conversation too (you sold them on social media, DON’T be a social gatekeeper!)
- Let the community share your news naturally (don’t self-promote that you or your client were blogged about)
Why am I gun-shy? Well, I have given ‘ink’ to one agency and their client and after a conversation started (i.e. comments, reactions, etc.) I suggested (via e-mail) that they and their client to join in because I felt it important that they, as guests, should engage with the commenters. They never did. To me, it was a missed opportunity that led to the loss of their credibility and understanding of social media. Using bloggers to get ink is not social media and it’s definitely not a way to develop a relationships.
If you are a PR pro…are you willing to roll-up our sleeves and build relationships first? And are you willing to tell your employee or client that blogger relations take time and it could take several months before they get blog ink?
If you are a pro at blogger relations, what has worked for you?
If you are a blogger, what would you add to the list?
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Tags: 15 Responses to “Blogger Relations: It’s easier than you think…”
The Harte of Marketing by Beth Harte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Excellent post. I’d add ‘Be a blogger/ tweeter/ Facebooker/ LinkedIner yourself.’
Most bloggers I see are skeptical about PR pros and some don’t even know the role of PR (at least in India). It helps that I introduce myself as a blogger first, even in official mails, by sharing my personal blog URL and twitter profile – as against sharing the URL of my firm and its twitter ID.
I have feedback from bloggers that this helped them connect with me at a personal level – isn’t that what we all strive with mainstream media?
Customizing a pitch is no longer enough. You have to have a pre-established relationship with the blogger before you even consider it (and the relationship better be pretty solid). Heck, I haven’t technically cold “pitched” someone in quite some time. I like to have established myself as a presence on their blog, comment sections and engaged them before sharing something I deem interesting (in the form of a partnership or pitch). Just my two cents…
Great post, Beth. It’s more about the relationships you build via these venues than putting information out there… I honestly think that is some of the best business strategy. The more relationships you build, the better off you and your business will be in the long run. I’m not sure why that’s such a hard concept to grasp.
SaraKate’s last blog post..009. Why Wasta Is Important
Nice job Beth. If someone actually follows all these tips, the blogger won’t even realize that they’re being pitched to. They’ll just view it as a trusted member of their community, sharing something that is valuable…and that’s what it’s all about.
David Spinks’s last blog post..Why Scribnia Is Valuable To ME
Thanks for the post, Beth – a great help for a communicator flailing around with an organisational social media strategy!
Very helpful. Most of the “rules” that apply to getting coverage in traditional media also apply to working with bloggers. New medium, but many things have not changed.
Another way to connect with bloggers is to find the ones who are looking for sources and content. That is what http://BloggerLinkUp.com/ does. I will be sharing a link to this post with BloggerLinkUp subscribers–this will be useful to them.
Awesome post, Beth! As a PR professional (nonprofits), I’ve “preached” for years that PR is about relationships…not just press releases! Social media makes it (pardon the bad grammar) even more true!
Bill Prickett’s last blog post..Directions Along the Way (Part 1)
Hi Beth,
Thanks for the great post. Something I would add is that bloggers are looking for value and a great way to offer that is in the form of data (think studies, surveys or other tangible examples).
We had been trying to target several top tech and productivity bloggers with thoughtful, targeted ideas to no avail. We had all the basics in place, we read their blog and knew the topics were of interest, however, in order to bust through the noise, we needed to do more.
So mined data on the quality of the bloggers’ readership (based on subjective rankings of comment quality) and put together our own blog post on ‘Reader Quality Score’. The bloggers were super interested to see how they ranked and the data behind the study (which was comprehensive). Because we offered them something of value and something personalized, we got a great response.
Now, some PR professionals may say that was a bust because it didn’t promote our products. I wholeheartedly disagree. Because we offered something of real value we started down the path of a give-give relationship. Since that original study, the bloggers we work with are eager to hear what we’re working on next.
mcolacurcio’s last blog post..Quickly Capture Your Thoughts into Smartsheet
Your point about adding value is important – just because someone blogs about your general target theme, doesn’t mean they’ll be interested in what you have to say.
To use a top-level example, they might write about sports, but on closer inspection be more interested in hockey. So, your football-related story adds nothing for them. That’s why reading over time is important.
I strongly agree with your part about building a relationship over time, too. It’s easier said than done, and you may not always have the time and opportunity to do it initially, but if you can manage it over the long-term you’re much more likely to get results.
Not that different to traditional media relations, really.
Dave Fleet’s last blog post..Disagree With Me
As a blogger myself, I can say that I enjoy being contacted from any company that I write about. It’s validating that one, you’re making a difference, and two that my talking points matter.
For unsolicited reach out, I love casual emails asking me to check something out and a little background into who they are.
Sadly, this means that many PR firms fail by adding me to their mass-marketing lists and just blast me their irrelevant releases and I just tune them out.
A good idea is to comment and engage — and be human. Find and follow them on Twitter, and to use services like BackType to learn what makes a blogger tick. The tools out there today that make it incredibly simple for any brand to engage with bloggers.
Yes, for those who are curious, I don’t mind being informed of new innovations and services in the world of social media, small business or entrepreneurship. Feel free to shoot me an email — joseph . manna at infusionsoft . com.
~Joseph
Joseph Manna, Infusionsoft’s last blog post..17 Ways You Can Be a Better Inbound Marketer
Hi Beth,
Excellent advice, and I hope the PR pros out there are listening (and reading). You’re absolutely right that before you reach out and pitch you must 1) read the blog and understand what the focus is, which hopefully leads to 2) making sure what you’re pitching is on point and provides value to that blogger’s community.
If you’re good at your job, would you do any less if I were a journalist at a major news outlet?
So many PR people skim the blog titles and blast out stuff, hoping to get something to stick. For example, http://dogwalkblog.com has almost NOTHING to do with dogs, yet we get pitched all the time for dog stuff. Next.
On the PR end, there are so many blogs and it is so hard to break into that “Power 150″ that once part of the “elite” many bloggers don’t give pitches a chance. I know nothing entitles PR folks to the blogger’s community, but if a blog becomes an automatic “no” or worse, a non-answer, how will you know if you are missing a good thing just because the PR pitch might be clumsy or naive? Perhaps that is the point. Or, perhaps I think we are all learning this dance together.
Regardless, the social rules of engagement that worked well off-line work equally well on-line. The “ink” is just different.
Gerard McLean’s last blog post..Testing a sponsorship relationship
@KarthikS, great points! I don’t think it’s only in India where bloggers are skeptical…Speaking for myself, yes, I want to see that people who are pitching bloggers are engaged in social media themselves…their clients too! Otherwise I know I am dealing with a mouthpiece and not the company who has the actual news.
@StuartFoster, cold pitching equates to all those nice spammy emails that get sent to journalists/bloggers…and we all know it doesn’t work.
@SaraKate, perhaps it’s a hard concept to grasp because it takes time and energy…some businesses are looking for the quick hit (or quick sale) and that’s what they motivate their employees to do.
@CathyStrucker, exactly. In this case, the “rules” are made up by the community…the blogger seeks to give their community what they want. With traditional media, if the readers don’t like the magazine/newspapers content, ads, etc…they unsubscribe, same thing with a blog.
@MColacucio, I read your post and data and it was a great way to build a relationship with some of the bloggers you sought out…although if I remember correctly, there was also some contention, which lead to additional conversation (please correct me if I am wrong). The difference is that you gave them data on themselves and their readers. When I am pitched a survey from a company, I know it’s skewed towards that company’s offerings because I used to do that myself in PR. I won’t publish that type of information here at THoM.
@DaveFleet, that’s a great point…also, I’d add look for tone on certain subjects. That will provide a lot of insight too.
@DariaSteigman, we know the answer to that, right? There are a lot of people that spam major news outlets and then wonder why they didn’t get picked up. That’s what I mean by a “broken” industry. We need to reinvent it and start building those valuable relationships.
@GerardMcLean, it’s not “hard” to break into the Power 150 (which some would argue doesn’t mean a hill of beans anyway). It takes time, effort, useable/interesting content, and passion for community. And I don’t think at all that bloggers in the Power 150 are ignoring pitches… As for my own experience that spurred on this post, I was pitched survey findings. I won’t blog about surveys because I know they are skewed (for the most part). If I am pitched about a marketing tool or concept, etc. that’s a different story (pun not intended).
And yes, we are all learning this new dance together…and the dance will have new moves month-to-month, year-to-year. That’s why it is SO important for PR folks to be engaged in social media themselves so that they aren’t behind in the latest dance steps. It’s like pitching the Electric Slide when the Tango is back in style.
Hi Beth,
I’m a little late to this conversation, but thank you for the great advice. There is some great insight in the comments as well.
I agree with SaraKate: The more relationships you build, the better off you and your business will be in the long run.
And like her, I’m curious why companies do trip on this a bit. I mean if the whole foundation of business is relationships, then wouldn’t they excel in the digital landscape?
What are your thoughts on why this is not the case?
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