Posts tagged ‘Blogger Relations’
How NOT to Pitch a Blogger
As many in the public relations (PR) industry are aware, blogger relations is the new frontier. The days of writing a press release, spamming journalists, and incessantly pitching your story are slowly coming to an end. The PR of tomorrow is about building relationships with both journalists and bloggers and introducing them to ideas for posts and stories once a relationship is established. As a marketing guru and blogger, I have a unique perspective on this.
If you are a blogger who has any sort of traffic to your site, you have probably had the unique pleasure of being pitched either by a PR flak or a company spokesperson. One such pitch I received recently was what sparked this post. It went something like this (names have been changed to protect the guilty):
“Hello,
I have been an avid follower of your blog for past couple of months.
Recently, we have came up with a viral game for our company, which I felt
like sharing it with you. It’s a “viral game” devised for our poker portal,
where you get points on our portal by inviting people to play.
Can you kindly review this game that we have made for our company and
please mention it in your blog?
Thanking you in advance,
Ivan Awfulitch”
There are a couple things I would like to point out to Ivan (again, not his real name – but a painfully uncreative fake one). First of all, I have never heard of Ivan or his company. If he really was an “avid follower” of my blog, why haven’t I seen a comment from him on any of my posts or even an e-mail saying he enjoyed a certain post? Why is the first correspondence I receive from him asking for me to do something for him?
What too many people don’t understand about the blogosphere is that it is based on mutually beneficial relationships (read “I scratch your back, you scratch mine”). If he truly wanted me to even consider his proposition, I need to see a little love from him. For example, a trackback from his blog, a posting on his blog that links to mine, or even a comment on my blog. Any of those would have made his proposition infinitely more effective.
Secondly, if he truly was an “avid follower” of my blog, why would he send me information about a poker game? While he was mentally digesting every morsel of wisdom that shone forth from keyboard and sat at my feet (virtually, of course) supping from my brilliance, do you think he would have realized that I write about marketing and not gaming? But I do write about viral marketing, so that must be the connection, right? Wrong.
A little research would have been nice. Maybe he read a previous post where I highlighted a case study that he thought was applicable to his product. Maybe he had an idea on how his product can provide a unique viral marketing opportunity. Any insight other than “here is my product, please write about it” would have been nice.
The key to PR in the 21st century is the same as any other form of marketing – engagement. Mass communication doesn’t work any more. There is no BusinessWire for bloggers (and I would argue that it is becoming less valuable to journalists as well). You actually have to do your homework, target specific related blogs, and engage. Build a relationship. Write your own blog and reference them. Just as I said in the last post, you can’t be “efficient” with bloggers. You actually have to get your hands dirty.
What this means is you have to be much more focused about your approach. Rather than spamming a million bloggers that you have been “avidly following”, focus on a handful of targeted blogs and build a relationship. One great way to get several bloggers talking about you is to have one well-read blog write about you and have others read and comment. Work on getting coverage on a specific, targeted blog and send the link to other bloggers you are working with. Unlike journalists, bloggers like to cover what others are talking about. They are not as concerned about covering it first, only weighing in with their opinion.
Blogger relations is not like traditional public relations. It takes a non-traditional approach, just like everything else Web 2.0. Any other bloggers receive mildly amuzing pitches?
Web Design vs. Web Development
Since I have run into this issue with several clients and prospects as of late, I thought I would post a blog about it since it is on the forefront of my mind. In fact, I have taken this directly from a presentation I gave to a group looking to build a website.
A lot of organizations start with the idea that what they need is a website. So they start talking to web development shops in the hope that they can find one that will develop the best website for the least amount of money.
In my presentation I used the following analogy:
In general, how many people do you know who ask for a bid from their contractor:
before they draw up the blueprints:
However, most organizations ask for exactly that. Web developers are excellent problem solvers, but they need to solve the right problems. They will also tell you that the worst thing that happens with clients is they develop a really cool website, but the client asks them “where is the content”. The web developer typically expects the client to write their own content, but the client expects – a website.
Here is my formula for launching a website. In the end, just because you build it doesn’t me people will come to it. I broke it up into 7 easy steps:
- Positioning – Who is the website for? Why would the want to go to the website? What are the types of things they are looking for? What makes you different than everyone else out there? All these questions need to be answered before you ever put fingers to keyboard.
- Design – This is the blueprint phase of the process. This is where you typically identify key functionality, click flow, and usability, you build a site map, and you do blocking layouts for key pages. If done right, 60% of building a website should be in this phase.
- Build – This is the step most organizations are looking for when they want someone to do a website for them. However, a true build includes programming, writing content, proofing, testing, and revisions.
- Recruitment – Who are the influencers who will encourage participation? What is the value proposition to the influencers? Where does your audience congregate? Whatever your target audience, it is key to recruit both contributors and buyers.
- Online Promotion – Once your website is live, it is critical to promote it. This includes things like search engine optimization (both paid and organic), blogger relations, social tagging, and social networking. There are many ways to promote your website using web 2.0 tools, but they all require involvement and time.
- Offline Promotion – In the end, a website is just a digital store front. Even if you don’t sell products online, you sell yourself. Therefore, any traditional marketing efforts you use should drive traffic to your website. These could include efforts such as public relations, strategic alliances, events, and advertising.
- Maintenance – This one is often forgotten. However, it needs to be decided up front who will be responsible not only for ongoing site changes (new features, bug fixes, etc.), but who will be responsible for fresh content.
In the end, a website is just a tool that needs to be used properly in order to be effective. Not only that, but web marketing follows the basic rules of general marketing, namely – you have to have an audience that cares and engage that audience in what you are doing.
