Marketing Roadmaps

Blogger relations

Revisiting the 3Rs of Blogger Relations, Part 1: Respect

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Quite some time ago, my friend David Wescott wrote a post outlining the 3R’s of blogger relations: Respect, Relationship and Relevance, a framework quite similar to my own approach both at the time and still.

Not at all surprising, since a shared conviction about how to engage with bloggers was how we met in the first place.

Since I am more or less relaunching Marketing Roadmaps at this new URL, I thought it would be a good time to revisit these core concepts.

Let’s start with Respect.

What made David’s post so good was the introduction of the word Respect. Most of the thinkers in the space (myself included) had been talking about Relationship and Relevance as well as the ideas he categorized as Respect. But his post was the first time, to my knowledge, that anyone applied the actual word.

And it is such a perfect word to describe the attitude with which you,  the pitcher, should approach the blogger, the pitchee. Yes I know that is not a word. Sue me.

With respect. For his time. For the passions that fuel her blog. For the person. For the blog.

Here are some of the things that demonstrate lack of respect for the blogger that have crossed my desk in the last few months, either directly or forwarded from friends.

  • Messy emails, with multiple fonts, addressed to Dear Blogger, Name not available or some such. Probably forwarded more than once,
  • No actual signature, just a boiler plate email signature. Even worse  –  an email sent from one account but signed by another person. Really has that personal touch, you know.
  • Pitches to review books that want the blogger to flog the book or interview the author but don’t offer a review copy. Why on earth would anyone do that?
  • Repeated follow-ups, often through multiple channels. One is acceptable. After that you are stalking. Back off.
  • Refusing to provide review product after sending a pitch. Hullo — you got a hit. Assuming you targeted properly (yeah I know, big assumption), you should PLAN on sending review product. Offering a jpeg? Not good enough.
  • Pretense. Here’s a recent example. Sara from Suburban Oblivion relates a pitch she received from a product geared to preteen girls. She was somewhat interested and requested review product. The company refused, and not in the most elegant fashion. Bad enough, really, but when Sara blogged the story, someone related to the company left an unattributed positive comment on the blog. Read the denoument on Suburban Oblivion. Remember — pretend is a great game for children, and even has its place in our adult lives, but it is not an appropriate blogger relations tactic.
  • Invitations to events the blogger couldn’t possible attend.  Even worse, press releases about PAST events to which you did not invite the blogger at all.

If you are going to reach out to bloggers, you must develop a very healthy respect for the the fact that most bloggers have no intrinsic reason to be interested in what you have to say. They may indeed be your customers and interested in your product, but it is not their job to promote your product. That’s your job. If you want their help, you have got to put it in a context that is important to them. That’s the concept of Relevance, which we’ll review later this week

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In a special hell all its own is the absolutely awful pitch that made the rounds last week following the family tragedy of actress Jennifer Hudson. I won’t link to it here, but here are some commentaries from Twitter pals Katja Presnal, David Parmet and Kevin Dugan.

I wish this was the first time in my life I had seen such a piss poor PR reaction to a tragedy, but it isn’t. People are blinded by the perceived relevance of their product and lose all perspective about the personal nature of tragedies. It’s stupid, tasteless, disrespectful and shows a total lack of common sense. And happens all the time.  It’s also easy to avoid. When the temptation strikes to capitalize on tragedy, and it well may, just say no. There is absolutely no way your product is SO RELEVANT that it merits the disgraceful behavior of capitalizing on another person’s tragedy. Full stop.

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Finally, all practicing PR people should read BL Ochman’s post PR Industry Leaders Put Their Feet in Their Mouths at Critical Issues Forum and ask themselves, is this me? Am I doing better or perpetuating the problem? What can I do better?

One of the things we can most definitely do better is to improve the relevancy of our pitches, and not just to bloggers. To journalists too. More on that later this week.

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UPDATE, 11/3: This post hadn’t been up a day before a friend, a Massachusetts mom blogger whose home page clearly states her name and state, tweeted about the pitch below. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask for a better example of the importance of respect for the blogger, especially since the event is for a good cause which is also tarnished by the bad pitch.

About bloggers: our bark is worse than our bite

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Earlier this week, a friend tweeted from the Marketing2Moms conference in Chicago that one of the panelists had commented that marketers needed to be careful with bloggers because they might bite.

I thought about this. Thought about it some more.

And the more I did, the more the concept irked me. Because it’s not true. Bloggers don’t bite. Not really. We  bark. Sometimes very loudly.

But — for the most part —  it’s not about hurting you. It’s about being heard.

Now, before I take this analogy any further — and I am going to — let me be clear. I am not saying bloggers are bitches or dogs. They might be… but not generically or collectively. That’s something you have to decide on a case by case basis 🙂

I do however find some interesting parallels in canine behavior and figured, let’s have a little fun on a Friday night.

I realize however that not everyone finds such comparisons apt. I remember a former co-worker who took umbrage when I described  her hair color, which I thought was lovely, as brindle. Like a Scottish Terrier coat. To me, it was a compliment. To her, not so much.

So, if this sort of parallel bothers you, read no further. Perhaps pop over to Snapshot Chronicles and see the election videos I posted earlier today.

Still with me? Okay, let’s go.

Why did this comment about bloggers biting irritate me so much? In part because it sounds like scare tactics designed to make the assembled marketers so worried about engaging with bloggers that they will hire the consultant who made the comment. Now, perhaps they should hire a consultant with experience reaching out to bloggers but fear creates the wrong atmosphere for authentic engagement.

But what irritated me the most was that it is not true. Most bloggers bark, not bite. Just like most dogs.

Sure, there’s the occasional ranter who goes off on anything and everything with no warning. Just like the dog years and years ago that jumped up and bit me on the upper arm for absolutely no reason and with no warning while I was speaking quietly to the owner during a canvassing effort for NARAL.

But if you pay attention, bloggers tell you what’s important to them. What they care about. How to engage with them. Just like dogs bark to go out, bark when they want dinner, and bark like crazy when the UPS driver pulls up or they sense stranger danger. They warn you off and they defend their territory.

Just like bloggers.

Now, if you don’t listen, maybe you will get bit. But it is rarely without warning. Rarely unavoidable. And quite simply rare. Dogs don’t bite as a matter of course, and neither do bloggers.

There’s no reason to be scared. Approach slowly. Look for the clues. Pay attention. Get to know the other party. Reach out carefully.

And you might just make a friend for life.

Honey, I’m not home: Sci Fi’s 08 digital press tour

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cross posted to Snapshot Chronicles

Readers of Marketing Roadmaps may recall a series of posts I wrote about a year ago on the Sci Fi Channel’s digital press tour. Sci Fi invited members of the digital press up to Vancouver for a weekend at which the network’s current shows were featured – Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Stargate Atlantis and the then new, now cancelled and extremely horrible Flash Gordon.

The representatives of the online sites were treated to tours of the sets of the shows, Q&As with the some of the stars and a chance to break bread with  Sci Fi executives Mark Stern and Bonnie Hammer. By all accounts it was a success for both the digital media and the network.

After I completed the case study, I half jokingly told Courtney White the PR rep from New Media Strategies that she should be sure to invite me next time.

And she did. In part perhaps because I have a feature on my personal blog Snapshot Chronicles that covers science fiction television, but mostly I suspect because  I recently pinged her to follow up on the case study for the blogger relations book I’m working on.

So here I sit on a Southwest Airlines flight to Denver. This year, the focus is on SciFi’s unreality show GhostHunters and the premiere of the new Amanda Tapping series Sanctuary on October 3rd.  Apparently there was a big GhostHunters event already planned and Sci Fi decided to combine this year’s digital press event with it. The  event is being held at the Hotel Stanley in Estes Park Colorado which horror fans may recognize from Stephen King’s The Shining.

Red rum anyone?

I’ll be covering the event in three places, with three slightly different perspectives.

On Marketing Roadmaps, I will be focusing on the outreach program itself. How successful is it for the network and the writers? Is everybody getting their full value. I noticed some repeat attendees from the first one, but the sites I spoke with for the case study will not be there. Is it a content issue – they aren’t interested in GhostHunters and Sanctuary as much as they were in the content of the previous event?

Or a cost issue?  Sci Fi is reaching out to a population it refers to as digital press. Some of these are blogs, but many are online portals. The writers may even be paid and, paid or not, many consider themselves journalists. This is a very important distinction when discussing blogger relations. Not so much from the content or hospitality perspective but definitely from the expense one. Attendees pay their own travel expenses.

As a result a purist might argue that this isn’t really blogger relations. Well, I’ve never been a purist. Online engagement can take many forms. The term “blogger” in fact is already a misnomer, as we may be reaching out to customers on Twitter or through Facebook or even a branded community. As long as the blog/site in question has an element of community, where readers can comment or converse with each other in some fashion, it is social media. 

On Snapshot Chronicles, I’ll be writing about the hotel and the general experience of the event, with an emphasis on photos. I saw two elk on the way into town and grabbed a quick snap from the car, and the scenery is just gorgeous. I’ll also have a review of Sanctuary after it premieres. I’ve seen the screener but those don’t always have all the effects. I’m not really a GhostHunters viewer so not entirely sure what I’ll do with that content, but I’m keeping an open mind.

I’ll also be doing a guest post over on BlogHer about the trip. Among other things, the post will cover a breakfast scheduled with actress Amanda Tapping, formerly of the Stargate franchise and now the star and an executive producer of Sanctuary.

Most importantly though I plan to have fun, and wash last weekend’s Las Vegas dust right outta my hair.

Blogger relations faux pas

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Here are a few more pitches that illustrate the points we’ve been discussing in the blogger relations series.  Later this week, we’ll take a look at the new incumbent for crappiest pitch ever. Literally.

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Um, no I write about marketing, blogger and public relations and social media. On a blog.

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I love this one. Really I do. I just wish they had included a cover note.

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Oops. You should always get a reporter or blogger to agree to the embargo BEFORE you give her the news.

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Wow! My blog is cool!. But Arthur, do you know what I write about? Have you read my blog? I’m guessing not, because if you had you would know that I do not like unsolicited jpeg attachments and  rarely discuss products. Other folks write about the widget du jour. Not me. And.I’m still scratching  my head on how you managed to spell your own name wrong. The letters aren’t close enough on the keyboard for it to be a transposition… Could it be that you did not send the email yourself?

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This isn’t the worst pitch I’ve ever received, but it rubbed me the wrong way. The tone was a bit arrogant and didn’t establish the collegial feel I expect the publicist was aiming for. If I interview someone, I want to actually interview them. Not submit three questions for an intern to answer using the messaging document. It’s also a bit off target; the publicist probably got my name from one of the media databases. I don’t write about branding and advertising that much, a fact for which the branding agencies should be generally grateful as they probably wouldn’t be too thrilled with what I’d write. Let’s just leave it that I think branding agencies get paid far too much for what they actually deliver.

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Make sure you don’t commit a blogger relations faux pas. Re-read your pitch before you send it.

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Some Blogger Relations Mathoms

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As part of a fresh start to Fall, I’m cleaning out my email box today. In the process, I’ve run across a few blogger relations issues that really can’t support a full post but deserve mention.

Email addresses

Don’t use gmail, yahoo or other free service email addresses to send pitches. People like to know that they are dealing with a reputable person, a reputable organization. Your email address, traceable to a firm or organization through its website, helps convey that information. Related: don’t send the email from someone else’s account, ie the email FROM: field is one name and the signatory on the email is someone else.  Nothing says “processed using an email database” better than an email sent by one person on behalf of another.

Media databases

Media databases like Cision and Vocus that include bloggers are an okay place to start building a list for blogger outreach in certain high-profile blog categories like tech, parents and marketing, but don’t just spam releases without a cover note. Vocus offers an opt-out button, and I find I am using it when it is simply a release with no note. While I am sure there is a work-around if someone affirmatively requests materials, once someone has opted out from an entity, the system isn’t supposed to let it send anything else. In other words, no second chances. Now, this might force agencies to actually begin contacting bloggers before emailing them, but I am not terribly hopeful.

Why did you send me this pitch?

If you get an email like this from me or any other blogger, don’t take offense. When I do it, it means that the item might be of interest, but  you didn’t tell me why you thought I’d be interested. Now, if I’m just a name in a database, and you have no clue why you sent me the item, this does have the effect of calling you out, so to speak. The best course is to apologize. But don’t simply offer to take me off the list — ask me what I would be interested in.

Often as recently happened with a junior staffer at an agency I respect, the rep just gets so wrapped up in the pitch that she forgets to identify the WIIFM. That’s why I always advise starting there — tell the blogger, or journalist, why you thought he’d be interested before you get into the pitch for your thing, whatever it may be.

And finally, a pet peeve.

The true meaning of Unsubscribe. It’s the action we take when we have subscribed to something, by choice, and then decide that we don’t want to receive it anymore. It is NOT a synonym for opting-out of a mailing list to which you have been added without your permission. Increasingly, however, I’ve noticed that organizations are using unsubscribe in that context. Even the opt-out mechanism on Vocus has an <Unsubscribe> button instead of <Remove> or some other verb that would be more accurate, and I have seen it used on other PR pitches sent to bloggers.

This really bugs me. Since I did not subscribe to your list in the first place, how can I possibly unsubscribe? I suspect the use of the language is motivated by the CAN-SPAM Act. The thinking probably goes something like this:

Adding these people to our mailing list without their permission is probably in violation of CAN-SPAM, but people get so much email these days, if we imply they subscribed, maybe they’ll forget that they didn’t opt-in to ours and we won’t get in trouble.

Sleazy.

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