There has been some good thinking on PR and its interaction with the blogosphere lately.\u00a0 Specifically a post from Louis Gray:\u00a0\u00a0Bloggers and PR Are Not Enemies, But Quality Efforts Are Needed.<\/p>\n
Lets start by pulling out something Louis wrote:<\/p>\n
Not every public relations firm is an expert in dealing with bloggers. Some are waking up to the blogging phenomenon and, guessing at the influencers, are simply adding blogger e-mail addresses to their distribution lists, without taking the time needed to see what it is each blogger covers, learning their focus areas, or personalizing an angle. Others are\u00a0aggressively hustling the top two to five names\u00a0and ignoring the second layer \u2013 which creates stress for those pursued, and resentment for those who are ignored.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I would like like to think every PR firm gets it by now, it\u2019s not a big mystery what the blogosphere is.\u00a0 Louis is right though unfortunately, especially when we see things such as the\u00a0bad pitch blog.\u00a0 Then again, there have been bad pitches since traditional media was the only game in town.\u00a0 Bad PR is bad PR, and simply carries over into the blogosphere.<\/p>\n
The difference is here, if you get it wrong in a bad way, you can be\u00a0put on display\u00a0for the world to see.\u00a0 No one wants that.<\/p>\n
The fact that I am a blogger and know how my peers think gives me insight into the\u00a0shared experience of blogging.\u00a0 My honest opinion?\u00a0 You should\u00a0start a blog\u00a0yourself if you truly want to learn how to get bloggers talking about you (I feel like I say that a lot here).\u00a0 Once you\u2019re actually blogging you will see how everything fits together, build the right relationships, and innately know how to create pull strategies that can work to cumulative effect over time.<\/p>\n
The thing is, there are so many angles, so many possibilities, and so many approaches you could potentially take to get bloggers and other\u00a0social media power users\u00a0talking about you.\u00a0 The web means your creativity is limited only by your imagination, especially if you have a good team in place \u2013 a strong developer combined with the right creative type who\u2019s also a\u00a0web guru\u00a0and you\u2019re going to get big results.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk some more about two basic approaches for PR (certainly there are others, but I want to focus on discussing these two for now):<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0 Viral blog outreach<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Just a few things I have done to mass effect \u2013 getting hordes of bloggers to talk about a client or a news item:<\/p>\n
\n
- Developed web apps that thousands of bloggers not only used, but blogged about<\/li>\n
- Built community around a product\/client<\/li>\n
- Crowdsourced new products<\/li>\n
- Ran contests that got people actively involved<\/li>\n
- Taught others\u00a0linkbait\u00a0strategies for their own blog<\/li>\n
- Helped encourage an ongoing dialogue with sets of niche bloggers and a relevant company<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Knowing these potential tactics and others by themselves is worthless though.\u00a0 Everyone knows the tactics, its applying them to creative marketing and PR with an understanding of what is possible that gets results.\u00a0 If you do any of these things without having the right elements in place to make them sticky, they won\u2019t go very far.<\/p>\n
Two examples of viral blog outreach
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nA while ago, I ran a\u00a0java beta test\u00a0that was extremely successful by the initial scope we defined.\u00a0 In all, 1,500+ bloggers signed up and the promotion received buzz and coverage on Technorati top 100 blogs, national tech news sites, and hundreds of bloggers in the long tail.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n
\n
- Promotion played off a popular internet meme \u2013 beta testing (plus java is code, and coffee \u2013 nice added fit)<\/li>\n
- Bloggers were not \u201cpitched\u201d \u2013 they\u00a0signed up<\/strong>\u00a0to participate \u2013 this was key because what have bloggers done countless times?\u00a0 Sign up to beta web apps.<\/li>\n
- We gave bloggers link love and recognition<\/li>\n
- We gave bloggers a product they already use<\/li>\n
- We let bloggers decide the direction of a\u00a0brand new flavor\u00a0(and\u00a0Eric Friedman\u00a0even came up with a great name \u2013 Coffee 2.0).<\/li>\n
- There was no \u201cpush,\u201d the process was designed to be viral from step one.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I\u2019ve\u00a0blogged\u00a0on this campaign before, but wanted to bring it up again only to highlight I was not\u00a0pitching<\/em>\u00a0bloggers.\u00a0 For large outreach, you can\u2019t just send out hundred emails with pitches\/press releases and expect to get coverage \u2013 never going to happen.\u00a0 You have to create an idea, web app, pull strategy, or campaign that scales and will spread organically.\u00a0 Pushing messages out is doomed for failure.<\/p>\n
One more example:\u00a0\u00a0Blog Action Day\u00a0is a brilliant campaign:<\/p>\n
Blog Action Day was simple \u2013 bloggers signed up and pledged to write a post on poverty on October 15th. They rallied thousands of bloggers together \u201cto change the conversation that day, to raise awareness, start a global discussion and add momentum to an important cause.\u201d\u00a0 It was a big success and got coverage not only during the day but long before, and well after.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Here are the numbers in case you didn\u2019t see them:<\/p>\n
\n
- 12,800<\/strong>\u00a0Bloggers<\/li>\n
- 14,053<\/strong>\u00a0Blog Posts<\/li>\n
- 13,498,280<\/strong>\u00a0Readers<\/li>\n
- 17<\/strong>\u00a0Top 100 Blogs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
They built a web app where bloggers could sign up and pledge to participate.\u00a0 They followed-up with bloggers on that day.\u00a0 They forged community, made everyone feel as if they were part of a movement, created excitement, tracked the whole thing, and gave everyone recognition and links.\u00a0 And they made a mark, just look at the spike in conversations surrounding poverty on the day:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
These strategies are great for forging relationships, especially if you have an underlying theme behind them you can build on over time, and your client has a blog to aggregate all of this attention (build subscribers, get reviews, create raving fans, bring them into the process, listen to their feedback, put bloggers in the spotlight).<\/p>\n
Blog Action Day will be even larger next year due to the very nature of them taking ownership of a day in the blogosphere and the coverage and commitments continue to build for them over time.<\/p>\n
As an aside, much of what I have learned from both personal experience in online PR\/marketing and studying the success of others are what I based my post on\u00a010 skills all PR pros need for 2009 and beyond.<\/p>\n
2) Direct outreach \u2013 pitching influential \/ popular sites<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Startups, public relations people, and established brands all want to be talked about by influential bloggers.\u00a0 Let\u2019s be honest, even bloggers want to be talked about by other bloggers.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written some\u00a0tips on pitching bloggers\u00a0previously, and I do still think those are good tips for potentially reaching bloggers.\u00a0 But it may be even simpler than all of that if you are trying to pitch a popular blogger whose work is frequently shared across social media.<\/p>\n
Assuming you have a good relationship with that person already and know their blog and niche well \u2013 I think it goes beyond giving authors content that merely \u201cfits\u201d their blog.<\/p>\n
Fitting their blog is nice but that\u2019s no guarantee.\u00a0 Plus it is easily put off, ignored, or replied with \u201cyeah that\u2019s cool, I\u2019ll have a look.\u201d\u00a0 Even when you\u00a0know<\/em>\u00a0the blogger personally this can be the response.\u00a0 Face it, bloggers are busy.<\/p>\n
As both a blogger and a PR pro, I\u2019ll be honest:\u00a0 I frequently get pitches for this blog, think \u201cthat\u2019s neat\u201d but never get around to writing on it.\u00a0 What happens is I finally get into my writing for the day, consider their pitch, but realize while it might be mildly interesting it probably won\u2019t be as successful as something I can think of on my own.\u00a0 So what happens is I\u2019ll end up skipping it for something that I think will be more interesting to write and more interesting for you to read.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that the content I\u2019m getting isn\u2019t a fit, it just isn\u2019t anything that is going to\u00a0break through the clutter.\u00a0 Bloggers don\u2019t build and keep the attention of thousands of subscribers by being boring, and they are extremely weary of writing something their audience will view as dull or even seen as selling out.<\/p>\n
Here is some direct insight into how much we value our blogs.\u00a0 This is from a comment left on\u00a0WinExtra, a popular blog covering the social web:<\/p>\n
I\u2019m reminded that a few years ago someone offered me $50,000 for my website. I laughed and said I\u2019d need more like $5 million. He laughed and said something like \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous, your stats don\u2019t support it\u201d. That\u2019s true, but I\u2019d have to pay taxes on that money and then invest it to pay me something equal to what the site does, and THAT would take appx $5 million \u2013 and THAT is what matters, not fb stats, Analytics or anything else.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Think about that for a minute \u2013 to the site owner mentally, the valuation of his site is $5 million dollars.\u00a0 What is a blog, really?\u00a0 A collection of posts.\u00a0 Each post has huge value to us, we are personally vested in all of them.\u00a0 I would think many of us feel similar to the WinExtra commenter, and I doubt any of us would take $50,000 for our blogs \u2013 I certainly wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
This may sound like I am oversimplifying it, but if you want to pitch influential or popular bloggers, here is my advice:\u00a0 only provide content that is both remarkable and marketable.\u00a0 Resist the urge to give them\u00a0anything<\/em>\u00a0else.\u00a0 This ensures three things:<\/p>\n
\n
- You personally, as the PR professional or company, will be seen as having a high degree of\u00a0signal<\/li>\n
- Greater chances what you sent them will actually get published<\/li>\n
- When the blogger does publish the story, if it successfully spreads, that will motivate the blogger to use more of your source material.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If you can\u2019t (honestly)\u00a0 see what you\u2019re sending a blogger as something which could be made popular on StumbleUpon\/Delicious\/Digg, or at the very least re-blogged by other blogs in the niche, why are you pitching it to the blogger in the first place?\u00a0 Put yourself in the blogger\u2019s shoes \u2013 if you were that blogger would you honestly publish this?\u00a0 If you\u2019re already reading blogs in the niche and are yourself a blogger, it\u2019s not hard to see what is worthy and what is not.\u00a0 Look at it objectively, don\u2019t mix emotion with it.<\/p>\n
Bearing you followed this advice and gave a blogger only remarkable content, which when published was successful, they would have a hard time turning you down next time as they know you have an eye for what their readers want and fits the essence of their site.\u00a0 This is a great way to forge a relationship with a popular blogger who is getting a constant stream of pitches.\u00a0 When they see your material is always marketable, you will eventually get green-lighted to the front every time.<\/p>\n
Make yourself a PR professional with a reputation for a high degree of signal and resist the urge to bother your influential contacts with news that is boring and you\u2019ll win every time.\u00a0 Sometimes you have to get creative here, but hey let\u2019s be honest, that\u2019s half the fun of PR.\u00a0 There is always a way to package content in a way someone will find interesting \u2013 that is your challenge.<\/p>\n
Of course, there is always my idea of creating a\u00a0startup to connect bloggers and PR people.\u00a0 ProfNet is so web 1.0 it hurts, someone could step it up and do something better.<\/p>\n
In the end, I don\u2019t think bloggers care if the inspiration for a good story comes from a Google search, another blog, a PR person, or their own brain, it just has to be something that moves them (which will inevitably move their readers).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There has been some good thinking on PR and its interaction with the blogosphere lately.\u00a0 Specifically a post from Louis … <\/p>\n