{"id":360,"date":"2007-04-24T16:03:55","date_gmt":"2007-04-24T20:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/?p=360"},"modified":"2007-04-24T16:03:55","modified_gmt":"2007-04-24T20:03:55","slug":"more-blogger-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getgood.com\/roadmaps\/2007\/04\/24\/more-blogger-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"More Blogger Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"

"A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet." — Irish proverb<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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<\/a> and Chip Griffin<\/a>, both of whom disagreed with this notion.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

You have to do it right, as Elise Bauer, Michelle Madhok and I<\/a> 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.<\/a>  {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.}<\/em><\/p>\n

When companies do it right, they can make new friends. Some good blogger relations campaigns: GreenStone Media’s<\/a> outreach in September 06 with Gloria Steinem<\/a>, and the current<\/a> Nikon<\/a> DS80<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

And when they don’t, it’s ugly. Microsoft’s Vista launch comes to mind. Ben McConnell<\/a> and B.L. Ochman<\/a> share some other examples.<\/p>\n

When they don’t, they give everyone a bad name.<\/p>\n

Somehow, somewhen, I ended up on a LIST. I think it is a list from Vocus,<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n