blog till you drop!

Engaging with bloggers is by far the hardest aspect of digital PR; emailing news releases to bloggers often won’t do the trick – bloggers want good content but they also want to get something out of being approached, a product perhaps an invitation to an event, some may even ask for cash (I think we all know about how I feel about bloggers getting paid, so we’ll skip this one)

This blog post is very much a summary of my experiences as someone who engages with bloggers, but also regularly gets pitched.

2007 – The honeymoon period

I was first pitched by a PR agency back in 2007 – I was overwhelmed back then. Wow, someone was actually sending me a phone to review, because they cared about what I had to say, AND they had taken the time to read my blog. So far so good…

In 2008 the cracks started to appear

2008 saw an even bigger growth for Digital PR with brands increasingly wanting a piece of the digital cake. Some PRs did a pretty good job at engaging with bloggers whether it was through commenting or saying hello on Twitter, whilst others still sent long boring press releases *sigh*

In 2009 things got out of control…

… and bloggers started to express their discontentment

Have I ever told you about the SEO agency who sent me a one-liner email with an attached very long and boring press release for sex toys? When I told said PR that I write about social media marketing, she responded that I was on a database – #hugemassivePRfail

I believe that 2010 will be the year of crowdsourcing. French High Street shoe retailer Andre, approached a few lifestyle bloggers last year and a new limited edition shoe range, created by the bloggers themselves “Quand les bloggeuses s’ent melent”*  will be on the shelves this coming Spring.

Sorry to disappoint your boss, but creating a media list containing 100+ blogs isn’t the way forward – it’s tedious and a waste of time.

But how do you engage with bloggers:

1) Content is king – bloggers write out of passion. Don’t expect bloggers to write anything if your content sucks

2) Is your content relevant – so you’re working on this ‘awesome’ travel campaign and want to engage with travel bloggers. Make sure the bloggers you include on your media list are highly targeted. There are lots of different types of travel bloggers – those who write about their adventures around the world, those who write about the travel industry in general (think Cranky Flier or Travel Rants)  and the professional travel writers. Even though they fall under the travel bloggers umbrella, they are not interested in the same type of content.

3) Whenever possible target your influencers, in other words those who have written about your brand in the past – they’ll be thrilled to receive the latest news about your brand

4) It’s quality that counts not quantity – shorter, more targeted media list are better for everyone’s sake (think about your poor unpaid intern who’s spending days engaging with bloggers), plus if your list is shorter, you’ll have lots of spare time on your hands to find out more about the blogger you’re trying to engage with.

5) Engage with bloggers – I am not talking about sending a nice paragraph about how much you enjoyed xxx blog post, but a leave a (thoughtful) comment, or engage in a Twitter conversation. With (secret) Twitter lists, keeping an eye on your pitching ‘victims’ is easier than ever.

6) My first ever boss told me that clients buy people, not companies. I believe that bloggers ‘buy’ PRs. I wrote about clothes2order a number of times last year as their approach was spot on – friendly and personable

Are there any other blogger relations tips that should be added to this list?