"A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet." — Irish proverb
Blogger relations has been a hot topic in the PR/marketing blogosphere over the past few days, starting with a post by customer marketing evangelist Ben McConnell that advised companies to stick with the folks, the customers, they already know rather than to reach out to bloggers they don’t know. Ouch. I definitely agree with Shel Holtz and Chip Griffin, both of whom disagreed with this notion.
Certainly, we should pay tremendous attention to our customer, and nurture that relationship, whether she has a blog or not. And absolutely, many companies have made an absolute hash of blogger relations. More on that in a minute.
But I cannot think of anything more valuable than making a new friend. Of introducing something of interest to a blogger, who is this strange meld of influencer and participant that makes for unique, and valuable, engagement.
You have to do it right, as Elise Bauer, Michelle Madhok and I discussed at our recent panel at BlogHer: read the blogs, understand what the bloggers are interested in, ask permission, give the bloggers something unique or exclusive, let them know they are important, don’t send press releases. And so on. Read our Do’s and Don’ts here. {Note: McConnell subsequently updated his post, which brought his position pretty much in-line with the rest of us, that establishing a relationship before "pitching" was the key.}
When companies do it right, they can make new friends. Some good blogger relations campaigns: GreenStone Media’s outreach in September 06 with Gloria Steinem, and the current Nikon DS80 campaign.
And when they don’t, it’s ugly. Microsoft’s Vista launch comes to mind. Ben McConnell and B.L. Ochman share some other examples.
When they don’t, they give everyone a bad name.
Somehow, somewhen, I ended up on a LIST. I think it is a list from Vocus, but haven’t confirmed that with them. And being on the list isn’t the problem per se. It’s the blog spam I’ve been getting. And I’m not even in the top marketing/PR blogs.
- Mass mailed pitches
- Press releases without pitches or cover notes of any kind. With buttons that lead me to… email links. Sometimes 3-4 in one day. From the same company. That never bothered to ascertain my interest. Umm?
- Regular updates from a NY PR agency on their client’s activities, when I’ve never been asked if I was interested or even blogged about the client. And the kicker, when I extended the courtesy of emailing to ask how and why I was in their database, no reply.
- Pitches about products, even though I rarely write about products. Web 2.0 services and silliness, yes, but I don’t review products. Perhaps the occasional book, but that’s pretty much it.
- Pitches telling me so and so is available to interview. I don’t do many interviews, although if I can get my podcast going, I’d do more. But see previous point, I rarely do product stuff.
Now, it is pretty clear that none of the senders of the above crap actually read this blog, or they wouldn’t have sent me the garbage they did. They’d know that I have high standards for the practice of blogger relations, which their "pitches" just don’t meet.
I am tired of getting this stuff, and tired of these poor practices giving those who practice ethical blogger relations a bad name.
But, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Which is why I haven’t named any names…yet.
However, starting May 1st, when I’ve been spammed three times by the same person, I plan to write about it. Naming names.
Fair warning, I think.
UPDATE: Going through my notes, I found one more comment I wanted to link to — Tom Murphy. Fitting I think, that I open the post with an Irish proverb and end with an Irish blogger.
Tags: blogger relations, ethics, public relations, PR
