Last week, I was a guest on After Hours with Andrew Bell, a financial news program on Canada’s Business News Network. Think of it as the Canadian equivalent of Bloomberg News. Topic: the new FTC guidelines and potential impact on companies. You can watch it online here.
Later this week, I’ve got a bad pitch to share with you but I want to spend some time on the post, a luxury I do not have today. I thought I’d get us all in the mood by sharing a few blogger relations tips.
Good blogger outreach has to go beyond the product and its features. That brilliant features-based pitch with the clever tagline you are about to send? May be enough for the blogger to consider buying your product, but I can almost guarantee you, it will not be sufficient to get him to write. You’ve got to go beyond the features, and tap into something the blogger really cares about.
If you are planning any programs aimed at mom bloggers, take 13 minutes and listen to this 360 Public Relations podcast. It was taped at last fall’s Mom2Mom Summit, and features top mom bloggers and marketers discussing what works, and what doesn’t, in the mom social media space. Full disclosure: I edited the podcast for 360.
Broken record though I may be, do not forget that, as of December 1, if you compensate a blogger, whether in cash or free products, the new FTC guidelines on endorsements and testimonials require you to:
- inform the blogger that she has an obligation to disclose,
- monitor for compliance as well as accuracy of product claims in any resulting posts and
- take steps to correct inaccuracies.
While this is not retroactive, if you are in the middle of a program, I would err on the side of caution and comply with the new Guidelines.