Livingston

May
27
2007

Some Thoughts on Pitching Bloggers

There’s much debate about communicating directly with bloggers, caused by the Vocus controversy. What is right, what is wrong. Where to begin….

What’s wrong is treating bloggers like traditional media outlets. New media content creators do not have any obligation to “report� or field inquiries. They don’t have to write up a kind review of your product (even if you comp them something), and a great majority distrust traditional public relations tactics. Consider the most successful tactic to date involves literally bribing bloggers with free stuff. This practice has been dubbed by the Wall Street Journal as giving blogola.

Specific tactics will continue to evolve in this realm as bloggers and social networks determine how they want to be communicated to… But the major issue with pitching towards bloggers is that when this occurs, a company’s community participation tactics are not strong enough to command respect without having to push. When strong social network relationships are not in play, news that may be of interest to a community cannot be communicated naturally and virally. This puts an organization or company in a position of weakness as it forces marketing to promote initiatives rather than to attract attention. Social media is not conducive towards this kind of promotion.

When there is a strong social network strategy in play, members of the community feel tied to the organizations efforts, and if they believe in the organization, are often willing to help promote it. The Splashcast team’s intelligent dialogue with the blogging community before the company’s launch is a great example of engaging a community before an initiative hits the market.

That being said if an organization must promote in an outbound fashion, our experience demonstrates that a very simple pitch must be drawn up for new media outlets that’s very customized to each particular blog or content creator. Any pitch must be about the new media outlet’s interests/content direction, and must provide value to them by providing some sort of facts, service/product or information that’s of interest. That can include early trials of products or services, but be wary, as this does not guarantee positive write-ups, and if the information/product/service is poor, you better expect a negative write up (see Vocus issue).

Use of only one URL should be included in the pitch, pointing the outlet back to more information in one central location (such as a social media release). No pitch should overtly demand or request pick up, instead providing an “FYI� only. The pitch is usually submitted as a tip via a web form on the site, or emailed to the blogger IF their site invites tips.

Then once you send your pitch, let it go. Period. That means do not follow up or harass the blogger/content creator. At all. If there’s no pick-up or interest, take it as a sign that your company just engaged in shameless promotion instead of creating value for your community, and start your new media strategy over. And be happy you didn’t get slammed by one of the bloggers. Begin again by building value for the community instead of trying to exploit its members by pitching them.

:) Another $.02 delivered.

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by Geoff Livingston | Internet Marketing |

10 Responses to “Some Thoughts on Pitching Bloggers”

  • The Buzz Bin » Blog Archive » Thinking Bloggers and Pitching Blogs Says:

    May 27th, 2007 at 10:08 pm

    [...] These last three entries brings up the great how do you pitch a blogger debate. We have never weighed in on this, but because I like this entry so much and I’m supposed to be a thinking blogger… Check out this blog entry. [...]

  • Jim Durbin Says:

    May 28th, 2007 at 10:37 am

    The long and short of it is if the first contact you make with a blogger is pitching them your product, you’re not doing it right.

  • Geoff Livingston Says:

    May 28th, 2007 at 10:54 am

    Agreed. It should never get to the point with a social media community that this is the only way.

  • Marketing Whore - Marketing, PR, Internet Marketing Tips for Mainstream and Adult Bloggers Says:

    May 30th, 2007 at 1:47 am

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] Carnival of the Capitalists The Marketing Whore welcomes you to the Carnival of the Capitalists.The good news: All posts which are safe for work reading. (So click and link away!)The bad news: This post was delayed due to our server being down (still celebrating Memorial Day we guess). Sorry about that.The next carnival, June 4, will be hosted at Spooky Action.Now, onto the carnival.Marketing:Zenofeller.com smacks of rebellion (with a hint of lunacy) with The Failure of Marketing: Historically, marketing is plagued by one fundamental, strategical failure. It fails to communicate the notion of “don’t buy this shit”. Nope, that’s not a typo. And don’t let my hype fool ya, there’s genius in this post. (Genius always has a hint of insanity.)At Sox First the Six rules to avoid PR disasters are mandatory reading. I don’t care if PR interests you or not; this is vital.The Buzz Bin had a great post on Pitching Bloggers:What’s wrong is treating bloggers like traditional media outlets. New media content creators do not have any obligation to “report” or field inquiries. They don’t have to write up a kind review of your product (even if you comp them something), and a great majority distrust traditional public relations tactics. (This post is a follow-up to this post, Thinking Bloggers and Pitching Blogs, which I think he intended to be his first link in that post… In any case, I also recommend reading it.)In Queercents says, God Made Me Buy It: The Virtue of Consumption. This line should make you go read it:consumerism is consumerism… no matter what virtue or non-virtue is pushing you to buy something.Gender & Culture:The Epicurean Dealmaker poses some interesting gender matters regarding i-banking in Fingernails that Shine Like Justice. Also a delight ~ no, make that a riot to read.I have witnessed and participated firsthand in sustained and determined efforts to increase the number of women recruited into investment banks, and it is true that the number entering each year in first-year analyst and associate classes has increased markedly from my youth. However, what is also true is that very few of these women stay. The ones I know who do genuinely seem to enjoy their work, and they can cut the balls off a charging rhinocerous (or CEO) with an indenture with the best of them, all the while making their doltish male colleagues think impure thoughts about their pantyhose. In other words, I am of the opinion that smart, aggressive women have a distinct advantage over men in investment banking. Why, therefore, aren’t there more of them?Phil for Humanity writes about The Size of Money. Those who cannot see and those who are new to the US have to deal with our funny money and it’s time we started making more cents sense with our money.Econbrowser writes on something we all are thinking about, fuel prices, with the current status of Arizona Clean Fuels’ effort to build a new refinery, Who should pay this bill?General Business:Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog compares Business life lesson - Business is a team sport. But don’t mistake this for just the typical “No ‘I’ in “Team” talk; this is worth reading.InsureBlog ponders health care in Margarita’s & Medicine. As a self-employed person who knows many others in this same boat, I know we wonder what’s worth paying for. Here’s a perspective I recommend you read.You can cough up the $40,000 or so to have your joint replaced (if you do not have insurance).Or, you can jet to an exotic isle where the procedure is more like $6000. hell’s handmaiden discusses Supply, demand, behavior, profit … and such like. With 8 points, she had me intrigued at the first one:The law of supply and demand is not based on human behavior. It is assumed.Small Biz Survival asks, What is an entrepreneur? I found the ideas for spotting and supporting them to be most interesting.Wayne Hurlbert at Blog Business World has a book review of Run With The Bulls by Tim Irwin. Does Wayne give it a thumbs up or down? Go read and see.Charles H. Green of Trusted Advisor says Far too many people are calling themselves “Trusted Advisors”, and he’s got some advice for you if you’re considering joining them:The two most trust-destroying words you can say are, “trust me.” Never say you’re someone’s trusted advisor, much less say you want to be, much less build an ad campaign around it. It is inherently non-credible and insincere. (I try on my own website– which of course uses the term — to say “helping people become trusted advisors” — and not to claim that I are one).Businesspundit wrote What Tiger Woods Can Teach You About Running a Business. Even the non-golfers can follow the lessons. And we need them.In business, I think we often know the things we should do, but instead we try to do the things we want to do. We like the random fun things. We want to plan, brainstorm, hold meetings, all the stuff that doesn’t require any discipline or focus.Can I get an, “Amen,” from you all? *wink*About.com Entrepreneur’s Guide discusses Borrowing to Build Your Business. I know a few of you may be tempted to by-pass this post, but read this line and see if you shouldn’t change your mind:why would you want to borrow instead of getting investors? Simply put, borrowed money is cheaper than invested money.Also, a few posts with neat resources:The Alexander Report has a list of Apparel and Textile Associations and Organizations.Prosperity Achiever has a CSS Tools Collection.Labels: blogging, book reviews, consumer types, gender, general business, marketing, PR [...]

  • brandstorming: How To Pitch A Blogger: Be One Says:

    June 13th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] How To Pitch A Blogger: Be One Geoff Livingston really hits the mark on how to market to bloggers.I still get pitches from PR agents with little understanding of what I’m writing about or what impact I have on a particular community.They’re stuck in tracking numbers (if they’re good), or tracking Search Engine Rank (if they’re lazy). The idea that Google knows best has gone way too far into the marketing mindset.But Geoff gives an excellent overall description of what you should be doing to work with bloggers to market your product at Buzz Bin. Specific tactics will continue to evolve in this realm as bloggers and social networks determine how they want to be communicated to… But the major issue with pitching towards bloggers is that when this occurs, a company’s community participation tactics are not strong enough to command respect without having to push. When strong social network relationships are not in play, news that may be of interest to a community cannot be communicated naturally and virally. This puts an organization or company in a position of weakness as it forces marketing to promote initiatives rather than to attract attention. Social media is not conducive towards this kind of promotion.Basically, if your first interaction with a blogger is your product pitch or press release, you’re not doing it right. Throwing pitches to bloggers gives them either 1) an inflated sense of self-importance, or 2) reduces them to the level of paid shills like the PPP dupes who lease out their blogspace for a few measly dollars.To be effective, a blogger must be trusted. To be trusted, they must be part of a community. For a company to be trusted, they have to join that community, discover who is important in that community, and then determine if they are open to helping pitch products openly.It takes work to do this. You have to spend time reading blogs, and commenting, and hopefully blogging yourself. It’s hard to measure. It’s hard to get clients to pay for it. But ultimately, it’s the only sure-fire way to get results that have any real impact.If your goal is simply to create false metrics (like number of fake comments you can leave), then go ahead - bill your clients and tell them how much buzz you generated. If you want to truly make an impact a brand, put in the hard work.What does that mean for agencies? It means that most won’t be able to use social media marketing to pitch their product. It requires more interaction from the client (read: the client has to do much of the work for it to be authentic). This has been the difficult thing to teach - social media marketing is relationship-building on a one-to-one basis. It’s at its most effective when you get other people to help pitch your product for free.If you are an agency getting paid to produce results, how can you convince the unpaid evangelists that they shouldn’t be paid, when they are doing the majority of the work? And what do you do when they figure out you were using them?This is why social media marketing has been ineffective and expensive. You have to learn what makes bloggers get involved, and to learn that, you have to be one. [...]

  • brandstorming: How To Pitch A Blogger: Be One Says:

    September 5th, 2007 at 1:49 am

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] marketing mindset.But Geoff gives an excellent overall description of what you should be doing to work with bloggers to market your product at Buzz Bin. Specific tactics will continue to evolve in this realm as bloggers and social networks determine [...]

  • so - did - i: PR Blunder, Pithching to Bloggers the Wrong way. Says:

    October 18th, 2007 at 12:54 am

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] such situations? Am I right in not endorsing the product?Please leave your comments.Must read Links:Some thoughts on pitching BloggersHow to Pitch BloggersPitching Bloggers: 10 things that make bloggers angryBlogger Relations 101Liked [...]

  • Now Is Gone » Six Steps to Better Blogger Relations Says:

    January 30th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    [...] big issue with most blogger relations articles revolves around a tendency to treat bloggers like traditional media, and also a focus on [...]

  • stories from a Public Relations life » Six Steps to Better Blogger Relations Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    [...] big issue with most blogger relations articles revolves around a tendency to treat bloggers like traditional media, and also a focus on [...]

  • Darren Rowse on Targeting and Pitching Bloggers Says:

    May 11th, 2008 at 9:53 am

    [...] Some Thoughts on Pitching Bloggers [...]

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