"We receive on average 5-10 email requests a day to be profiled. I believe that if more companies approached us differently, a much higher percentage would be blogged."
"How do we court blogs with an eye toward marriage? More important, how do we do it without getting stood up, dumped, burned, or publicly humiliated? Our reputations, after all, are on the line."
You may know a lot about the blogger but he or she knows nothing about you. So it's easy to become over-personal, colloquial or even slack in your pitch. This can come across as being forward, lazy or careless, even though that's not your intent.
1. Never pitch, personalize; 2. Respect a blogger's time and intelligence; 3. "A blog is not about you, it is about me"; 4. Quality, not quantity; 5. Feed the food chain; 6. It's no longer just about the media; 7. Keep learning.
"If I had a company at Demo here's what I'd be doing right now. I'd be doing anything I could to get bloggers to try out my product. Here's how to pitch me -- just start a blog. Link to me. Use my last name. And then write something like: ..."
"These are the risks of blog relations. While in the past poorly targeted pitches to 'real' journalists were tossed in the bin, bloggers can be a little less unforgiving. The secret of success is preparation. Think before you click."
"Technoflak is not much of a believer in presentation software, she prefers to work from notes. Below are her notes for the How to Pitch to Bloggers workshop at the New Communications Forum."
"Steve Rubel's Four Steps to Pitching Into the News Curve: 1) Identify Leading Blog Influencers; 2) Plant the Seed with the Bloggers; 3) Hit the Mainstream Press; 4) Regenerate the Story with Other Bloggers"
"Some professionals will tell you not to pitch blogs at all. But I disagree. We just need to redefine the concept, and the desired outcome, of pitching a blog."
"Well the first thing I did with this press release [from the Viral+Buzz Marketing Association] was check the hidden corrections and BINGO! all the revisions are included in the press release."
Earlier this month, Warner became the first major record label to ask MP3? blogs to play its music. But as is sometimes the case when marketers try to insinuate themselves into online communities, the company's approach did not go as planned. Warner - which was part of the Time Warner media empire until February, when it was sold to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. - ran into a culture clash with the small world of MP3? blogs, annoying some of the very people it wanted to win over, especially after one or more people at Warner apparently posted anonymous messages to make it appear that ordinary music fans were defending the label.
" 'I’m about to change my letter to PR people asking them not to send emails with their news. Instead, I want them to put up RSS feeds of their news,' he advised. 'I think the press release page of a company’s site should have its own RSS feed. PR people will have a better shot at having journalists like me read their headlines if they do this.' For those new to RSS, Gillmor fleshes out his suggestion by answering the following FAQs? and sharing a few additional tips for improving your media outreach online."
'My advice for PR people is that you ignore Engadget and other blogs at your own peril. It doesn't mean that (PR people) should instantaneously start soliciting a new blog. It doesn't mean that you have to try to pitch 5,000 blogs; it just behooves you to pay attention to the ones that have an effect,' said Peter Rojas, editor of Engadget (and the former editor of Gizmodo).
"I've noticed a disturbing trend in the past year or so with PR people discovering - but not quite understanding - blogs. Some have a handle on it, but others miss the mark by quite a wide margin. This all became very clear last month when a PR person tried to convince me to write a story about a company he worked for - without identifying the simple (and important) fact that he worked for them. I've written up a longer article about this experience and discussed the growing fascination PR people have with blogs - and how both bloggers and PR people should respond."
"I appreciate how difficult the PR job can be, especially dealing with demanding people like reporters. But I hope these guidelines are helpful in getting my attention."
