Speak Their Language: Pitching Bloggers

Bloggers are no different than reporters. Remember that. One may get paid for what they do, one may get personal enjoyment/professional development, and one may be doing so because they are trying to make a living by blogging. The reasons behind why they are blogging are not important. The way in which you interact with them and treat them in a professional manner is.

Public Relations is largely about your relationships, connections and your ability to pitch a story of relevance and interest to the reporter you are pitching. Bloggers are no different, they just can be contacted more readily and often more easily. Often bloggers love to talk with PR people, especially if they can inform them about a new and relevant product that would be exciting to their readers. I mean, it's cool content. So why do lots of successful PR people fall flat on their face in the SM world? Hubris, arrogance and an inability to see that the landscape is changing. Oh, and a few basic best practices.

Speaking a blogger's language is important. Will a formal e-mail do the job with the proprietors of Something Awful? Doubtful. Nor will a courteous phone call. You have to put yourself in their shoes and think...if I was them would I really be interested in my product? If the initial answer is no...give up right there. Non-relevant pitches are the number one complaint I hear from reporters AND bloggers. Read the blog before you pitch someone. It's common sense to do so and it shows the person you are interested in what they are writing about.

• Connections First, Pitch Second: If you meet someone, hang out with them for a while and get friendly with them. They are much more likely to want to work with you. It's common sense, right? Wrong. A lot of people treat bloggers like names on a list: a standard email goes out informing the blogger of their offering and often the blogger immediately puts it in the trash. You can't treat bloggers like direct mailers treat their email recipients. Be courteous, kind, and engaging. The results will speak for themselves.
• Speak their language: Maintain your professionalism, but showing your humanity does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. Joke, curse, and generally have a good time. Some of my best friends in Social Media, Marketing, and Public Relations have come from merely sitting around and shooting the shit.
• Relevance: If you don't read my blog or even know what my blog is about, I have no interest in what you have to say. I'm not interested in pipe fittings...this is a marketing blog. This just shows common courtesy and respect.
• Genuine Respect and Interest: You can't fake this. You just can't. If you do it reeks of hubris. If I have a readership of under 400 people a day...treat me the same way as you would the founder of Tech Crunch or Mashable. This genuine respect and interest for what I am doing will shine through.
• Don't Be Constrained by the Need for Immediate Results: You trying to launch a product and you send me an email the day that you want to launch? Guess what...you've already failed. If you are launching a product, and talking with bloggers about cool stuff that your company is doing, you should have approached me 3 months ago. Sorry, but rushing it just doesn't work. Well, unless I owe you one.

Basic tenets of good PR right? Most people would agree that this stuff should be so heavily ingrained in you that it flows out of you like water out of a pitcher. However, because of readership, size, and personal opinions this can sometimes get lost. So view this as a brief refresher and remember: treat each blogger like you would the editor of the New York Times. You never know if they actually might know him/her .

tagged as bloggers, language, Marketing, new product, pitching, PR, Public Relations, relevance