Okay, I admit, this A-list thing is like a scab that I just can’t stop picking at. I think the whole concept of having an A-list in the blogosphere — where barriers to entry were supposed to have flattened — is patently clue-less. And while I am trying really hard to ignore the whole thing, I just have to comment on the flap du jour.
The facts: Steve Rubel of the MicroPersuasion blog published a short post last week advising readers that it was pointless to send him email asking for links — he was just too busy. The best way to "talk" to him was to get the blogs he reads to link to you. Here’s his post:
"Like Scoble, lately I have been getting a lot of please “link to me” emails. I look at these, but as the volume increases I will not be able to scale. This is true for many of the more popular bloggers.
So, here’s a blog relations tip for you. One way to get coverage on a “top-tier” blog is by identifying who he/she reads regularly and then pitching those sites.
Here’s how to get this done. Start by going to the BlogPulse Profiles site. Enter the URL of your favorite blogger and click on the Sources tab and you will get a sense for their linking habits. For example, here’s Scoble’s. Use the smaller blogs as stepping stones that help you get “coverage” on the larger ones."
Now, I congratulate Rubel on his successful effort to become the super-ultra-A-list PR blogger (see my previous post, good on you, have fun at the top, watch out for exploding egos). If that’s your thing, and you’ve got the time to make it happen, fine. And I appreciated the reminder about BlogPulse.
But, posts like this are just plain ego, and I don’t think they have any place in the blogosphere. BTW I also have no time for people who don’t answer their email. You work your way to the top of the heap, great. Hire someone to help with your correspondence. The people you AREN’T replying to, or others like them, helped you get to the summit. Don’t forget them.
I digress. Since I am trying to ignore all this crap, I was going to let it pass. Until I saw Media Orchard’s truly excellent post: the A-listers aren’t different from you and me. They call Steve on his premise, and remind us that the pr-news source-media relationship is symbiotic — we all need and feed off each other. The key is to make sure that what you "pitch" is really interesting to the one being pitched. And hope he has his listening ears on 🙂
Net net give "good news" and you should reap the benefits. Pitch crap, and that’s what you should expect, whether it is a magazine, a website or a blog.
Don’t skip the comments on the Media Orchard post –they are all pretty amusing, proving that no matter what, most of us seem to have retained a sense of humor.
The thing that irked me the most about the Rubel post was that it was effectively a conversation killer. In one fell swoop, he told thousands of people that he wasn’t really that interested in what they had to say, unless it got the stamp of approval from a blog or source he already liked/trusted. Doesn’t matter what you have to say. I just don’t have the time. And as the Media Orchard folks pointed out: the post basically said don’t bother me, bother them.
Now, I am sure that in practice that’s not really what he does or will do in future. I hope that if you have something really cool, and approach him with it, he’ll pay attention. But that’s not what he said on his blog, and in absence of evidence of what we do, what we say stands for us. And in this case, I don’t think he comes off well at all. I truly hope he thinks twice about it, and that other marketing and PR bloggers don’t adopt the same clue-less policy. If we as PR and marketing professionals, who strive daily to get notice for our companies, causes and products, won’t stay open to communication, who the hell will?
A note: you can find Steve’s post by by googling it or just going to his blog (which is in my blogroll). I believe this post was antithetical to the spirit of blogging, and it is not going to get any "link-love" from me. I realize that this won’t make a bit of difference (my blog is pretty much the pimple on the ass of the elephant) but it satisfies my perverse sense of justice.
My last words on this (at least for now): I have only ever asked other bloggers for a link once, when I was working on spreading the word about a charity auction for Hewlett Packard last fall. Usually I have the time to build a short list of blogger-influencers for my clients, reach out to introduce the company and ask permission to send them our news and ONLY then start including them in our announcements.
In the case of this project, I had no time. So I asked a very small number of bloggers to help me spread the word quickly.
I wasn’t too surprised when none of very few "A-list" folks I sent it to thought it was worth mentioning. They don’t really know me. I was, however, pleased and thankful for all the marketing and business bloggers I reached out who did respond and mention the charity effort on their blogs. They are MY A-list.
UPDATE 1/16/06: gapingvoid has the top ten reasons nobody reads your blog. Funny in its own right, but his post also includes links to additional material that I found both interesting and useful: a 2003 article by Clay Shirky on power law distributions (also known as the 80/20 rule) and a post by Kent Newsome, Why it’s impossible to build a new blog in 2006.
ANOTHER UPDATE 1/16/06: Here’s another great post on the whole Rubel flapdoodle from infOpinions: FInding a path to blog PR bliss….Goose and Gander Extremely well said, especially the end:
"For me, I really don’t go to Rubel’s blog – unless I am sent a link or see it referenced in some other blog and it seems interesting. It has lost value for me. Heck, anyone can do RSS searches, Google Alerts, Yahoo! Alerts and any number of other RSS feed scanning practices. I find all the things Rubel posts about, but in the other blogs I read. And, I find something more. I find the thoughts of those bloggers and what they think of these new ideas, tools, tactics and more. They add to the conversation, not echo it. That, my friends, is content worth reading. They may not be A-List bloggers, but they are the true Kings and Queens – the royalty – of blogs.
I hope Rubel enjoys being there – in his blog. Chance the Gardener has a new crop of squash. As in, squash the lil’ guys. He doesn’t have time for anything but the really big vegetables."
Jeremy Pepper says
Well, first, you should have contacted me for the HP charity auction – if you could have given me a PR story behind it, I woulda been all over it.
The post was pathetic, trying to compare himself to one of the nicest people I have ever met, Robert Scoble. Not a suck up, because it’s not really in my nature to kiss-ass, but more out of shock that he is so down to earth and nice. I think he’s a pod person.
It is all our responsibility to help bloggers that email us (albeit, sometimes it’s a time delay when I am slammed). We don’t need to trade links, but if someone has a question, answer it – especially if they are students. Some people have gotten a little too big for their britches ….
hugh macleod says
Thanks for the mention =)
Well as somebody who gets a lot of e-mails, methinks Mr Rubel has a point.
The truth is, there’s no easy answer to it. You want to help as many people as you can, but like Mr Rubel says, it doesn’t scale.
The good news is most of the A-Listers I’ve met have been very open and nice. That’s partially how they got there in the first place.
Some take their A-Lister status more seriously than others. Same as any other social cluster.
Susan Getgood says
I guess it’s all in how you say it 🙂 No one, Hugh, could ever accuse you of taking this a-lister shit seriously. Which is why I still read gapingvoid pretty regularly.
I just feel very strongly that communications professionals should leave the lines of communication open.
Jim Logan says
What a topic! I have never met Steve, he’s probably a nice guy. And his policy on link and email are probably necessary. Although, the way he wrote about…it came off pretty bad.
When I first entered the blogosphere I read Steve’s blog, everyone else seem to, so I thought I should too. I un-subscribed after a couple months…nothing but links to other sites, very little to no original content or thought. That being said, I wish I had his average of a little over 3000 visits a day.
This A-Lister thing is funny. Let’s see what happens when the hype of blogging wears off a bit more…those standing tallest may not even be in the game yet.
Susan Getgood says
I recall when I was an SVP at SurfControl, folks (internally and externally) often remarked (in surprise) that I answered their emails or called them back so quickly. And I got a lot of email.
I was stunned every time. If people took the time to communicate with me, I *owed* them the respect of a response. I still and will always feel that way. People are important.
hugh macleod says
“I just feel very strongly that communications professionals should leave the lines of communication open.”
It would be nice, but like I said, it’s hard to scale above a certain level.
To be fair on Steve, I believe he was trying to be genuinely helpful. Yeah, maybe in order to do it he had to draw attention to his A-Lister status, but that’s no big deal.
The only people who find that distasteful are people who give a damn about that whole A-Lister/hierarchy malarky.
Susan Getgood says
Maybe, Hugh. Maybe. But I can’t help but think there’s a better way to tell people how to pitch a blogger (or anyone else for that matter). It all comes back to targeting your audience, and making sure your message is relevant, interesting and of potential value to the “pitchee.”
There is an arrogance in saying I am too busy to listen. It’s a personal thing, but I don’t think anybody should ever be too busy to listen.
As I said in my post, in practice, I suspect that Steve DOES read more of his email than he is letting on. It would have been more useful to his readers to understand WHAT he was interested in. And how to talk to HIM about it. Creating a multi-tier approach is not a conversation.
And in the end, so f-ing what. I just had a burr across my ass about it.
John Wagner says
Susan:
I think the “A-lister” issue is one that is important enough to be debated, because it goes to the very heart of where we stand as marketers/communicators/etc.
And that is, what’s more important? Reaching a mass of people, or reaching a few who truly care about what you say?
In my business, I am constantly counseling clients to quit worrying about mass marketing and start focusing on building a community of customers who really like what they have to offer.
They often chafe at that, because it goes against their ingrained belief that everyone should know — and care — about what they do.
So it is with bloggers. We constantly worry about our readership, our links, our rankings. Yet we shouldn’t. Because it’s not about mass — it’s about depth of understanding in a community even of two.
Still, it’s human nature to want to be seen as the biggest and the best, and that’s why I think these discussions are important. They are helping us — as professional communicators — sort out what is really important when it comes to building communities. And when we see someone like Steve say what he did, well … it just drives home the point that when you get big, you often step on the very people who made you that way — even if you do so with the best intentions.
Susan Getgood says
Yup 🙂
Jeremy Pepper says
Well, he linked to this piece – didn’t actually come here and comment but instead decided to stay on his blog and comment about it in a controlled environment.
And, there in lies the issue. While linking is blog currency, and content is blog currency, so is actually going to other blogs and commenting. That’s another part of taking part in conversations.
But, hey, he supposedly listened to you. And, you are right – it doesn’t matter how many emails you get, it only takes a few seconds to say “thanks, got the email.”
hugh macleod says
Actually, I think the A-Lister issue is not important enough to be debated because “Fair” and “Equal” are not the same thing.
You can’t have it both ways, People.
Mike Sansone says
I’ve emailed Steve in the recent past. He responded immediately, though I didn’t ask for a link – which I think is important in this issue.
It may have come across poorly, but he did specify the type of email he wouldn’t be able to answer.
I’ll agree it would be hard to scale, little matter to the level of blogging grade one holds.
David Parmet says
If people spent less time worrying about who is on the A-List, is there an A-List, why is he/she/it on the A-List and why won’t so-and-so on the A-List return my emails – you’d have a whole lot more time to do things that are truly important.
I think we’re past a week’s worth of discussion on whether Steve Rubel is too high and mighty to answer our emails (guess what folks, he’s not.. he answers mine.. whoops.. maybe that makes me a suck-up?)
It would be nice if we could all be equal – if we all had time to answer our email and respond to each others’ IMs, blah blah blah, but it isn’t a perfect world. Some folks have higher page rank than others. Some get more email and can’t respond to it all.
And that’s just life. You can moan and bitch or get over it.
/rant off
Peter Cooper says
Perhaps a good compromise would be for these guys to subscribe to their for: tag on del.icio.us, so instead of e-mailing them, people can simply tag stuff for them to check out if they have the time. That way they can ignore it in peace rather than have a pile of e-mail.
John Wagner says
David, Hugh … I’m commenting on this issue not because I care one way or the other about Steve Rubel’s e-mail habits. I’m commenting because I think the discussion is MUCH deeper than Steve.
As I said before, it’s about coming to grips with human nature and a changing mindset about what is important in communicating a message.
In an ideal world, people would never even bother trying to grab Steve’s attention because they would realize they don’t need him to build a successful blog.
That parallels what clients need to realize … that they don’t need to be on Page 1 of the WSJ or the cover of Newsweek to be successful.
The sooner we stop shouting and waving our arms at people who don’t care about our message, the better off we will be.
Susan Getgood says
Thanks for all the comments folks. I’ve put my final thoughts in a new entry today: Listening ears on, Rant off.
gapingvoid says
the two immutable laws of blogging:
Forget power laws, A-Lister oligarchies, The Long Tail, The Cluetrain, The Hughtrain, Citizen’s Media, or any ideas of meritocracy, fraternity, democracy, equality or fairness. The Two Immutable Laws of Blogging: 1. “Nobody’s going to read your blog u…
Mack Collier says
Susan, glad you mentioned Scott’s post on Media Orchard, as he had the perfect take on it. And you are correct, the comments are must-read!
I will agree that I don’t think Steve was being intentionally malicious with his comments, but it obviously came across as ‘I’m too busy to be worried about someone as insignificant as you’.
Bottom line is, as others have said, just make sure you put out the best content you can, and the rest will take care of itself. Is this whole ‘A-lister’ stuff nothing more than a 90210 popularity contest? I think to a great degree that it is. That doesn’t change the fact that many of the so-called ‘A-listers’ are very good.
It also doesn’t change the fact that for every great ‘A-lister’, there’s thousands of blogs you’ve never heard of that are as good, or even better. And we are short-changing ourselves if we don’t make every effort to find them.
Robert French says
Susan, thank you for the mention and the comment in my blog. Much appreciated.
For me, this is worth discussing and it isn’t about Steve Rubel or any other single individual. It is about the contradiction of blog evangelists re: Long Tail and Cluetrain and then the attempt to assign a class to each individual. They don’t sync.
I wrote about it because my students will first read the ideas behind blogging and then see some blogs that are acclaimed as the most important – only to see them turning their backs on what they are evangelizing. The contradictions serve no positive purpose.
Griffin says
It’s all wrapped in ego really. We, you, I want links from “A-listers” so we get more readers. Blogging is very ego-centric in many ways. And I’m fine with all this. No so much about ego is it is about what flavor of ego do you have. If you think it’s about holding onto instead of spreading then that seems to be missing the mark to me.
I’m kinda with what Hugo and Robert are saying. I can control my content. Worrying about where I fall in the Great Tail isn’t helpful for me and if I ever do become an “A-lister” I’d see it as my duty, as a blogger, not to become contained within my own universe but to find and spread different voices and communities and pass those along to my readers, for better or worse.
I don’t know, kinda rambling but my two cents.
Robyn Tippins says
I’ve emailed Scoble and Rubel (am a loyal reader) and both responded within an hour or so. Scoble even commented on my post I sent him, but that’s probably because I wasn’t looking for a link, but an answer to a MS policy.
Neither came off high-and-mighty and I do think Steve’s post was meant to assist bloggers, but then I tend to assume the best about people.
I’m not trying to be mean, but your post comes off really inflamatory and rude…
Susan Getgood says
Thanks for the comment Robyn. I’m sorry you felt it was inflammatory and rude. I in fact tried very hard to not be either, even though I do have very strong feelings about the issue.
I’m glad to hear that you’ve had great experiences with both Steve and Robert Scoble. It in fact doesn’t surprise me at all that they responded to well thought out, sincere emails. It strikes me that they would.
Where I took issue was in how Steve’s post came across. Which is why I posted. And that’s the nice thing about the blogosphere – we are all entitled to our opinion. And if you share yours, you should be prepared for the slings and arrows, as well as the kudos.
Thanks again for commenting.
Susan
Robyn Tippins says
Meh, don’t worry bout’ it. I’m still a happy reader and subscriber 😉
timk says
‘A’ list, schmay-list.
The blogosphere is a system.
Some people enjoy playing the system, and that’s just fine by me.
Steve’s advice helps those who want to play the game.
He works like a news aggregator, so feed your wisdom to one of his ‘stringers’.
This post is just ggod advice.
It also perpetuates the vortex of which he is (somehow or other)a beneficiary…
Personally I detest this aspect of the blogosphere. But, on balance
“Whatever…!”
ThePublishingSpot says
Burn More Soapboxes!
A new media blogger, Chartreuse just published a post about the absolute lack of support between old bloggers and new bloggers. The post gave my Burn the Soapboxes post a nod at the height of the rant, and I appreciated…