Marketing Roadmaps

Blogger relations

Black lists don’t work, part two

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In Stowe Boyd’s responses to the latest black list flap, he advocates a totally transparent model for what he terms microPR:

"So, this is an additional argument for MicroPR: forcing PR firms to approach us in the open, on open social flow apps like Twitter, and in the small, where they have to jettison all the claptrap of the old press release model. In the open, that can’t lie easily, or they will be caught on it. In the small, they have to junk the meaningless superlatives, the bogus quotes that no CEO ever mouthed, the run-on phrases, the disembodied third party mumbo jumbo, as if the press release were edited by God."

There is some merit to bringing the entire conversation out into the light, but I can’t see it happening any time soon. There are too many impediments, including, but not limited to, the inevitable control issues. Companies and their PR agencies still think that they can maintain control over the process by managing it in a certain fashion. Wishful thinking.

So while I don’t think every communication between company and blogger has to happen in public, I believe we ought to act, write and speak as though they were. We used say:  would you do it, say it if your actions would appear on the front page of the NY Times tomorrow? Well, now, they could spread even wider. Act accordingly. Expect that your pitch will be published in full on a blog. Or used as an example.

More important than where you have the conversation is what you talk about. We have to stop being product centric and start being customer centric. For real, not just lip service.

The blogger isn’t simply an intermediary. He or she is your customer. Instead of asking the question:  how can we get the blogger to write about our laundry soap or tech widget? companies, and their agencies, should be asking, How can I help my customer? What information from us would be truly valuable and useful in their daily lives? What can we do for them? I guarantee you, it isn’t that your juice has 25% less sugar than yesterday or you are now at version 2.4.5.x of your software.

Companies should be talking to their customers where they are. If they are on Twitter, and they, like Stowe Boyd, want to be Twit-pitched, great. But if not — if the place is Facebook or MySpace or some other community, that’s where the company employees and PR reps should hang out. Get to know the people, their interests. Let the people get to know them. And then make the customers, not the company, not the product, the center of the story. However you pitch it, public or one-to-one.

"But that’s so hard and takes so long," says traditional PR flack.

Hhmm. Yes. But isn’t talking with your customer worth a little time?

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Black lists don’t work

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This week, the idea of a black list to stop PR agencies from spamming bloggers and journalists reared its not terribly attractive head, this time from Gina Trapani of Lifehacker who published a list of domains that had sent unsolicited email to her personal email address.  In the not distant past, we had the same invocation from Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired.

They have a point, and I don’t dismiss the concern at all. More and more, PR pitches are poorly targeted, poorly written spam. Bad when sent to journalists. Inexcusable sent to bloggers.

But black lists don’t work. Not really. They didn’t work for Joseph McCarthy in the 50s and they aren’t going to stop bad blog pitching now.

Why? Because they trap the innocent, the naive, the well-intentioned as much as they trap the disingenuous, the guilty, the spammers. And since the truly guilty are playing a numbers game, a block here or there matters little to them.

Our collective attitude about PR is no different than our attitude toward advertising. It’s not that we don’t like ads. What we don’t like is bad advertising, poor direct mail and fundraising calls during dinner.

For the most part, we don’t want to block ALL email from PR and marketing agencies. Just that which is untargeted, irrelevant, impersonal.

So companies, and their agencies, need to get with the program and figure out how to reach out to their customers online in positive ways. Reactive and proactive.

How? It starts with understanding what interests your customer. Perhaps your product, but generally, campaigns built around products fall flat. You need to think beyond YOUR product and into your customer’s interests. Needs. Desires. Hopes. Aspirations.

That’s not so easy for your average cereal or soap marketer. And why so many campaigns end up in the bad pitch column. Even when they aren’t necessarily that bad.

And unfortunately, there is no magic formula. Anyone who tells you there is? Liar.

It’s a process. It starts with preparation, research and active participation with the bloggers that matter to you. And for whom you matter.

Then when you go to engage — to pitch — it means developing a program that is as much, or more, about them than it is about you.  A press release about your latest announcement does not qualify. Sorry.

Watch this space over the next few months for some examples of companies that seem to understand what this means and have done outreach programs that resonated with bloggers.

And, please, stop looking for the bogeyman. There isn’t one — not even at the stupidest, spammiest PR Agency . Focusing our energies on looking for one obscures the real issue.

How do we want to engage with our customers online?

Want some help? I don’t often promote my consulting business here on the Roadmap. I figure if you want to call, you will. But please don’t forget that helping companies meet their customers online is my business. If I can be of service to you, nothing would make me happier.

Especially if it reduced the number of bad pitches landing in our inboxes.

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A Mother of a Day: Mom bloggers on the Today Show and a bad-pitch-apalooza

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What a day!

It started with the C-string on the Today Show — that’s the team after Matt and Meredith, after Al and Ann, which apparently now features Kathie Lee Gifford along with Hoda Kotb. This is where Today decided to effectively bury its taped segment with mom bloggers Jill Asher, Kristen Chase and Mir Kamin as well as its live interview with Heather Armstrong (dooce). Jill, Kristen and Mir at least benefited from a reporter, Janet Shamlian, who actually listened to their answers, although I do wonder about the editing of the interview. As Christina mentions in her post, the women discussed far more topics, including the importance of community, than made the cut.  And amateurs on YouTube do a better job with chyrons than whoever edited the taped piece. Here’s just one example — below is a screen grab of Jill Asher from Silicon Valley Moms. Maria Bailey is later in the piece, without a chyron at all.

But it was a decent segment and also included mentions of BlogHer. Too bad the network showed it at a time when it has relatively few viewers. So few in fact that it the local affiliates run second and third tier advertising. And in my case, the weekly tests of the emergency broadcast system.

The interview with Heather Armstrong was … There are really no words other than to say that the decision to employ Kathie Lee Gifford shows how out of touch the network is with its audience. Gifford was absolutely awful. I wish I had video skilz because then I would create a mash-up of the segment with the discussion on Twitter running alongside. You would literally pee your pants at some of the very on-target comments. Just do a few searches on tweetscan and summize, on Today show and Kathie Lee (use various spellings and intials, no one was too fussed about spelling it right).

Let’s just say no one was too impressed with Kathie Lee, her attitude, her preparation for the interview or the way she stomped on Heather’s answers.

I ask again: why did NBC think hiring Kathie Lee was a good thing? Seriously, I’d rather watch an infomercial. At least they are honest. Gifford has the gall to judge mom bloggers for writing about their kids when we ALL remember how she pimped her own kids on Regis & Kathie Lee. Blecch.

Moving on to the bad-pitch-apalooza. Apparently Mother’s Day brings out the best in bad pitches… Does that even make sense? Today, two duds crossed my desk, shared with me by mom blogger friends. Names have been removed to protect the innocent and guilty. Here are the first paragraphs from both.

and

Where, oh where, do I start? I know. How about:

  • Grammatical English. Moms, not Mom’s
  • Learn the tools, people. The parenthetical comment in the first is just embarassing. For those PR folks that still don’t get how bad this crap is, read it. And weep. The pitch was awful too, but it almost doesn’t matter. Nobody read past the parens.
  • As for the second. Sent to mom bloggers? Uhm, last I checked, they weren’t going to prom. For most of us, our kids don’t even have all their adult teeth, forget about zits. I did an informal and completely unscientific survey on Twitter and many moms I know personally received this mass emailed pitch. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Especially given the analysis Johnson’s  recently experienced.

There’s no excuse for this sort of error. It is absolutely crystal clear that no one is doing any homework here.

Compare and contrast with this pitch I received today:

Now, that’s refreshing. A PR person who actually understands that sending me a pitch is risky business. A calculated risk on the sender’s part that I would appreciate this approach, but if you read my blog, you’d be smart and take the chance. As she did. Sure, I’m critical, but always in the interest of doing it better, getting it right.

I also feel strongly about helping junior people get it right. My friend Liz Gumbinner (Mom-101 and Cool Mom Picks) regularly replies back to PR folks  for the same reason. We know they are young kids, thrown in the deep end, without enough help or training. "Just send these emails."

In this case, the pitch, for a market research report, was on target but way too long. No one would read it. I certainly didn’t. I also do not recommend asking bloggers to write. If the pitch is good, you don’t need to ask.  I gave her some input and asked for the report, and was pleased to receive, along with the report, her grateful reply that she was re-writing her email pitch based on my feedback.

Amen. And thanks.

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New Comm Forum, blog move, Star-Ledger on Camp Baby

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Just a few quick updates.

First, I will eventually get the slides from the Alumni panel at New Comm Forum up on the conference wiki, but for now, I’ve linked them here (PDF 2M). Thanks again to Jen McCLure, executive director of the Society for New Communications Research for supporting the panel and giving it such a nice slot on the program, and to the four alumni who shared their stories: Wendy Harman, Bob Siller, Doug Bardwell and Chris Turner.

Don’t miss the Star-Ledger’s story on Johnson’s Camp Baby. No news in it for readers of this blog, but nice to see mainstream media do such a balanced blogging story.

Finally, Marketing Roadmaps will be moving to Word Press sometime this summer, but I promise to give plenty of warning and will run in parallel for at least a month. Thanks to everyone for their advice and words of encouragement.


Power

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crossposted to Snapshot Chronicles. Warning: long post

Power. Of the collective. Of the parent. Of the blogger. That’s today’s topic.

Let’s start with what the collective can achieve when we come together. In this case, for charity. As you may recall, about two weeks ago, in one of my Camp Baby case study posts, I suggested that companies interested in reaching women bloggers put their money into the charities that we care about. Not that we don’t like schwag or free products, or hell, even some link love. But I have yet to meet a parent blogger that doesn’t contribute what she or he can to charity. It’s why BlogHers Act has such resonance for the community.

Which is why I was thrilled to get an email from Kristen Chase this morning telling me about the latest Parent Bloggers Network BlogBlast campaign. PBN has teamed up with Johnson’s to promote Johnson’s Baby Cause, the company’s new charitable giving site to support the health and well-being of mothers and children worldwide. Details of the promotion are on the PBN post, but short version, blog about how you’d like to be recognized on Mother’s Day. Both Johnson’s and PBN are donating prizes; I love the PBN prize — a $25 credit to donate to the cause of your choice at Baby Cause. Ten winners. There’s also a charity auction for gently used celebrity baby goods on eBay that will benefit Baby Cause.

Why do I like this so much? To start with, charity. That will get me EVERY TIME. Which I am sure Kristen knew when she emailed me. And then there’s the Johnson’s component. I absolutely love that this Parent Bloggers Network campaign came about as a result of Lori Dolginoff from Johnson’s and Kristen meeting at Camp Baby, a fact which I confirmed with Lori before posting tonight. (And perhaps of  Lori and Julie Marsh, Kristen’s partner in PBN, not meeting for all the reasons we already know.)

I’m sure the broader charity effort was well underway before Camp Baby earlier this month but as a direct result of the event, Johnson’s decided to team up with PBN to promote it. In short, it learned how valuable it is to work with people within the community, and that, my friends, is worth the price of admission.

Okay, you get here for free, but you know what I mean.

Another way we exercise our power as bloggers is when we help build our community. As Kim Moldofsky did today with a "link love" post for her Camp Baby friends on parentcenter. Yet another consequence, and hopefully not unintended, of getting 56 women with common interests together.

The power of the collective to effect change. Use it. Write a post. Help a friend with a little link love. Donate, to Baby Cause or BlogHers Act. But I’m thinking, buy a new diaper bag. 

Parent bloggers have power. And that’s the segue into my next topic, which is to tell you about a project that launched its public beta today called ParentPower. Full disclosure: I’ve been consulting for the company developing ParentPower, advising them about the parent blogger space.

What is ParentPower? It’s an application for parenting blogs. There’s a lot to it – a desktop widget, an index of top parenting blogs, links to sites we visit all the time like Flickr, Twitter and parenting sites, an RSS reader, the weather, and more. More details in the overview on the site.

Why do I like this project? Because Active Access, the company that developed the app, asked. And they listened. And not just to me and my colleague Kami Huyse, who brought me into the project. They did focus groups with parent bloggers. They’ve started talking in Twitter. We’re talking with BlogHer about the best way to work with the community. And we are asking for even more feedback in the beta process. So if you decide to download the app, please complete the Polldaddy survey or send email to myvoice@parentpowerindex.com

As everyone who reads my Marketing Roadmaps blog knows, I have my concerns about indexes, but Active Access has done a good job here. There’s no subjective component in the Parent Power index and blogs that score the same get the same rank.

Personally, I’m LMAO that my personal/parent blog Snapshot Chronicles, which isn’t even a year old and has a very small number of loyal, wonderful subscribers, currently has a better ranking on ParentPower than Marketing Roadmaps (three+ years old, 1000 plus subscribers) has on the AdAge Power150. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but (hint hint) I think the ParentPower algorithm is better (no offense meant,  AdAge 150), and  hope those parent bloggers whose blogs are not yet included in ParentPower will add them and knock me down the pegs I probably deserve.

The power of parents. That’s truly what the folks behind ParentPower want to support, and I urge you to give your feedback. On the application, on the index, on whatever floats your boat. The feedback from the parent blogger focus groups was invaluable, and really, we just want "more, more…"

And finally, power. As in laptop power supply. Marketing Roadmaps readers will remember rmy sad tale, posted on April 3, of a broken iGo power supply during my trip to NYC for BlogHer, the 4-hour search for parts and the $130 I spent on new cables because, contrary to the information provided by iGo support, neither Best Buy nor RadioShack stocked the part I needed. Well, today I got an email from a marketing manager at iGo offering to replace my broken part. While I am tickled pink? purple? some other color? at the fact that finally, a company actually read my frakking blog and responded, customer support already sent a replacement part at no charge to my home. Which is great and much appreciated, but does not compensate for the added costs or the wasted time while I was in NY. Nothing really can, but if they respond back to my  reply, I will tell them that I’d be thrilled with some  free product to give away on Snapshot Chronicles. (Sorry Roadmaps readers, all giveaways happen on the personal blog.)

We do have power as bloggers. Our opinions of companies do matter, as this study by SNCR demonstrates, and companies are starting to listen. Slowly.

So use that power wisely. Don’t bitch to hear the sound of your own voice or read the melody of your own words.

Write to change things for the better.

That’s power.

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Addendum – credit where credit is due (4/30/08)

Kim Moldofsky wanted to make sure everyone knows that
credit for the weekly post sharing idea goes to Jodi at www.momsfavoritestuff.com 

In my zeal to be transparent about my small part in the
ParentPower project, it came across to some readers as though this was my
project. While I think ParentPower is a great product and hope folks try it
out, I simply provided some advice about the parent blogger space. ParentPower
was developed by Active Access. Livingston Communications and Kami Huyse led the product marketing,
strategy and PR, and Shannon Whitley developed the Index algorithm.

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