Search results for the tag, "Blogger Relations"
January 18th, 2012
A version of this blog post appeared on the Future Buzz on January 17, 2012.
Chris Abraham recently published a case study on the “art of writing the perfect blogger pitch.” There’s a lot to like here. For one, the time and thought Chris and his team devote to this esoterica are rare. For another, spilling your trade secrets takes guts.
And yet, for a purportedly “perfect” pitch, the Abraham Harrison technique, approach, and diction leave much to be desired. Here’s why (in web-friendly fashion, via a list with headings).
1. Spam. In a classic act of burying the lead, Chris notes, “We reach out cold to upwards of 5,000 bloggers at a time.” This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Chris’s technique. After all, anyone can subscribe to a database such as Vocus or Cision, select key audiences and areas, compile a media list, and blast out a pitch. Industry insiders call this the “spray and pray” technique. Others know it as a form letter. The bottom line: it’s spam.
By contrast, another technique is to craft individual messages to specific bloggers. Take it away, Lisa Barone:“You know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. I know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. But sometimes you gotta fake it to make me feel special and pretty … Woo me … Talk about how you grew up in the same hometown (only if you really did). Comment on a post I wrote that gave you a bad case of the giggles, or how you think my Twitter feed should come with an NC-17 rating … I’ll be a lot more receptive once you’ve” connected with me personally.
2. WITFM. The best PR makes it appear as if you’re doing a favor for the person you’re pitching, letting him in on something important and intriguing. By contrast, Chris makes it clear that he’s the one requesting a favor: “If you are able to post about this issue in any form, it would really help spread the message of homelessness in its many diverse forms and maybe suggest ways to help improve many lives.”
Leave the guilt trips for Willy Loman. Instead, demonstrate the WITFM—“what’s in it for me?” To wit, don’t tell me why homelessness matters; tell me why my readers will care about it.
3. Subject line. Everyone agrees that your subject line is critical, so it’s surprising that Chris’s—“November Is National Homelessness Month”—is so boring. (As a colleague puts it, “It’s about as ‘perfect’ as an event notice whose headline reads, ‘Mark Your Calendars.’”)
To be sure, Chris seems to think this is a virtue; he explains, “We want [our subject lines] to be as neutral and as informational as possible. Teasing or tricking a blogger into opening [the e-mail] by being cute, mysterious, or clever … has almost always blown up in our faces.”
This is myopic: you need not sacrifice cleverness to be straightforward. While “Help Feed Homeless Children!” may be exploitative, a line like “What Are You Doing for National Homelessness Month?” is catchy without being too cute.
4. Intro. Chris refers to his opening paragraph as “poetry,” labored over by a team of three. But again, his copy is a snooze-fest:
“November is National Homelessness Month and I’m reaching out to you to discuss the issue of homelessness in America. I’m also hoping that you’ll discuss this issue with the readers of <<Blog Name>>. I am a volunteer at a small kitchen for the homeless in DC and while working there it occurred to me that this issue affects every town, village, and city in America.
This is the best a powerhouse like Abraham Harrison can do? Sure, it’s clear, but it’s nothing special, and it’s hardly inspiring. Indeed, not only does it lack cadence and cohesion; it also lacks commas.
5. Astroturfing. For each campaign, Chris creates a new e-mail address with its own domain. In this case, he’s using cjabraham@MiriamsKitchenNews.org, which is separate from the “real” Miriam’s Kitchen domain,MiriamsKitchen.org. This is problematic for various reasons.
a. Let’s give Chris the benefit of the doubt and assume that “bloggers don’t trust PR firms.” This is why his signature says “on behalf of Miriam’s Kitchen,” rather than Abraham Harrison. Yet there’s no getting around the fact that masking your employer is deceptive.
By contrast, consider the total-transparency approach taken by New Media Strategies: when its employees do something as simple as retweet something from a client, they’re required to use the hash tag “#client.” Ultimately, shying away from full disclosure only gives the PR industry a bad rep.
b. Given a limited budget and limited time, creating and managing a new e-mail address domain is a poor allocation of resources.
c. In this case, Abraham Harrison created an entire microsite at http://MiriamsKitchenNews.org. But, again, most campaigns can’t afford this expenditure, so what happens then? Do you leaveMiriamsKitchenNews.org empty? Do you redirect it to your own firm’s site? Do you throw up a simple landing page that repurposes your pitch e-mail?
d. What happens if, six months from now, someone you contacted replies? (We’ve all received one of these e-mails.) If you’re not still checking cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, does the sender get a bounce-back or an auto-reply? Or nothing? If you are still checking cjabraham@miriamskitchennews.org, given that you’re creating a new address for each campaign, I envy your endurance in monitoring what must be dozens of addresses. And to complicate matters further, what do you do with these addresses when your contract with the given client expires?
6. URLs. Chris deliberately omits the “http://” prefix in links; he says that e-mail clients will auto-activate incomplete URLs. While Gmail is sophisticated enough to do this, many other e-mail clients are not. This inability is especially damaging when a message arrives in plain text, which is the only form Chris sends.
Not many people will gladly share 3,000 words on the subject of e-mail communications. For that, Chris deserves gratitude and respect.
He also offers important insights, especially the one that a good pitch will spark a conversation. In that spirit, he’s agreed to respond to my critique.
So, Chris, over to you. How can two pros who’ve been working with bloggers for so long reach such divergent conclusion?
Enjoy this post? There’s more where this came from on Twitter, where I challenge sacred cows 140 characters at a time @jrick.
September 13th, 2011
A version of this blog post appeared on Spin Sucks (September 12, 2011) and K Street Cafe (September 15, 2011).
Why you should host one, and how to do it
Bloggers’ roundtables have been around for a while. They’re especially popular for book clubs, with the Department of Defense, and among politicians. (One wag asked John McCain if he knew the difference between YouTube and MySpace.)
Yet roundtables never took off as a form of outreach. That’s too bad, because as a vehicle to engage many stakeholders at once, roundtables can be as effective, if not more so, than their headline-grabbing cousins, Twitter and Facebook.
What is a bloggers’ roundtable? Technically, it’s a conference call. Figuratively, it’s a virtual press conference or editorial board meeting. Instead of standing at a podium, the speakers sit by a speakerphone, while the audience—the bloggers—dial into a conference line.
When is a bloggers’ roundtable useful? A roundtable works best when you want to share your story with a small, engaged group; when you want thoughtful feedback; and when you want substantive write-ups. (“Small” can range from a car-full of people to a dinner party to an NFL team.) The conversation is more intimate than a live chat, the invitation is more prestigious than a tweet or Facebook update, and the whole thing is more fun than an e-mail.
What do you need to do? After compiling a media list of pertinent bloggers, send each one an invitation to this “exciting new program.” Just as you wouldn’t invite the guy off the street to your press conference, so it’s best to review each blogger’s work beforehand to ensure that he’s relevant and respectable. (To be sure, this often is a judgment call: What do you do with someone, like a Keith Olbermann or a Glenn Beck, who’s very controversial but who commands a huge audience?)
Given the unwritten rule of RSVPs—of those who are invited, a minority will agree to come; of those who agree to come, a minority will actually show—it’s best to invite at least twice as many people as you’d like to participate.
Once you develop a distro list, you’ll need to set up a conference line. If you have the budget, consider recording and/or transcribing the call, so that you later can publish the audio file and transcript. Not only will this win you plaudits for transparency. It’ll also produce continuing returns on investment.
Now you’re ready to start inviting people. A few best practices:
- Make the invite compelling, so that it stands out alongside the dozens of messages that fill up the typical inbox each day.
- Send a calendar invite instead of or in addition to an e-mail.
- Send the invite a week in advance, and dispatch a reminder the day before.
- Instead of trying to cram everything into the invite, use links. Avoid attachments.
- Mention that the number of spots is limited. This engenders scarcity and thus commitment once someone has RSVPed.
- If you sense that a blogger is especially receptive, ask if there are others whom he’d recommend that you invite.
If you have the time, treat your most receptive blogger to an exclusive: A heads-up that you’re launching the roundtable, a pertinent article before it’s published, an advance one-on-one interview with your subject matter expert(s). Then, in your invitation, you can link to what the blogger wrote, which bolsters your credibility and inspires others to follow suit.
If you have even more time, consider conducting media training or murder boards with your expert(s).
How does it work? Generally, a roundtable lasts for an hour. After taking roll call, the host, who is typically the organization’s spokesman, introduces the experts and lays out the guidelines. Sample guidelines:
- Everything’s on the record.
- Use mute when you’re not talking.
- State your name and the name of your blog before speaking.
Each expert then provides a brief overview of the subject and his role in it. Then comes the crux of the roundtable—the Q&A.
On one hand, you can control the colloquy by calling on each blogger in the order everyone dialed in. On the other hand, you can let the conversation ebb and flow of its own accord. Or you can pursue a middle ground, which avoids awkward silences and doesn’t put anyone on the spot, by asking each participant to press the pound sign for his phone to be unmuted, after which he’s placed in a queue.
Whichever approach you prefer, while structure is important, don’t straight-jacket the conversation. Cultivate it. Your goal is a fruitful give-and-take.
For brownie points, consider preparing a backgrounder on each blogger, which your representatives can use to great effect when responding: “Hi Peter – Before I answer, let me just say how much I empathized with your recent tweet on the misery of being a Redsox fan.”
How do you judge success? Success comes when the bloggers write about what they heard. When this happens, encourage your expert(s) or spokesman to do something to show support, like leaving a comment on the post or tweeting about it; public displays of affection go a long way on the Web.
The bottom line: There’s more to online outreach than “Twitbook.” Sometimes the best tool is the oldest: The telephone.
What’s your experience with the bloggers’ roundtable? What advice would you add?
July 19th, 2011
A version of this blog post appeared on Tech Cocktail (July 18, 2011) and the Web site of the American Marketing Association—Washington, DC (July 21, 2011).
Mention the phrase “blogger engagement” to today’s marketer, and you’re likely to get an eager response, followed by self-professed ignorance. “We’d love to do that—we just don’t know how.”
To some, this scenario spells new business. (In part, this explains why many agencies separate their “digital” practice from their traditional ones.) Yet an honest blogger whisperer will let you in on a secret: If you can pitch a reporter, producer, or booker, you can pitch a blogger. After all, bloggers are just people—susceptible to the same charm-and-disarm techniques that every PR pro performs every day.
Indeed, the best way to understand bloggers is to view them as members of the media. Think of blogger engagement as public relations, albeit a new kind. Neither straight reporter nor pure pundit, the blogger is a hybrid creature who observes his own rules.
For example, you wouldn’t pitch the Joe Fridays at NYTimes.com, whose practices would make the Columbia School of Journalism proud, the same way you’d pitch the wits at Gawker Media, who aspire to an “angry-creative-underclass voice.” Instead, in order to get the results you want, it would behoove you to treat bloggers on their terms, not your own.
Here are nine of these terms—with the caveat that only after you know the rules is it ok to break them.
1. Write As if Your E-mail Will Be Published
Think of this as Joe Kennedy 101. The patriarch of the Kennedy family famously advised his children not to write “anything down that you wouldn’t want published on the front page of the New York Times.”
Indeed, if your pitch is good, your blogger may integrate your copy into his verbatim, without acknowledging his source. If you pitch is bad, your blogger may forward it to the Bad Pitch Blog. As SHIFT Communications advises, “If you pitch isn’t good enough to be published as is, don’t send it.”
2. Connect and Flatter
Think of this as Psychology 101. Like most things in life, blogger engagement is built on relationships. And relationships that flourish tend to sprout from common interests. As Lisa Barone, of Outspoken Media, advises (my emphasis):
“Snuggle me a little. You know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. I know you’re sending the same e-mail to 20 people. But sometimes you gotta fake it to make me feel special and pretty … Woo me … Talk about how you grew up in the same hometown (only if you did). Comment on a post I wrote that gave you a bad case of the giggles, or how you think my Twitter feed should come with an NC-17 rating … I’ll be a lot more receptive once you’ve stroked my ego.”
In other words, your initial message is your opportunity to demonstrate that you’ve done more than copy and paste the blogger’s name and e-mail address. Show that you’ve taken the time to learn about this guy and are familiar with his work. Show that you’re someone worth engaging with.
A related point. Blogging is a personal and relational medium, so send e-mail blasts only when you must. Ask yourself: Do you treat messages in which you’re CCed differently from those in which you’re the only recipient?
3. Make Your Pitch
Think of this as Public Relations 101. The secret to PR: Make the blogger feel as though you’re doing him a favor, not asking for one yourself. Explain why the blogger should care about what you’re throwing him.
4. Exude Enthusiasm
Think of this as Showmanship 101. If you aren’t jumping for joy about what you’re pitching, your recipient won’t be, either. Enthusiasm is contagious. Spread it around.
5. Don’t Pitch—Talk
Think of this as Communications 101. Hacks have long relied on flacks. But bloggers, especially in tier one, tend to look at PR people askance. As Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media, puts it, “Our sites are allergic to corporate boilerplate.”
This is understandable. For one, while it’s common to spam a hundred reporters with a press release, bloggers loathe releases. Instead, omit the manufactured quotes and summarize the key points—maybe in bullets for easy reading.
6. Be Brief
We live in an era of texts and tweets. According to blogger Brian Solis, “The escalator is the new elevator when it comes to pitching.” To wit: You now need to be both succinct and brief. This means resisting the urge to cram everything into a single message.
Instead of attaching PDFs and PowerPoints, use links generously. Your goal is to whet your blogger’s appetite, to spur an ongoing conversation, rather than a once-and-done correspondence.
7. Make the Ask
Think of this as Sales 101. Before you close the deal, you need to make it clear what the deal is. In the same way, don’t forget to tell your blogger why you’re e-mailing him. If you’re looking for him to write something, say so.
If you’re just introducing yourself or asking for feedback, say that. Be explicit without being Donald Trump.
8. Exploit the Subject Line
Think of this as Marketing 101. Most people devote all their energy to crafting a compelling pitch, then wrap their labor in a cheap bow. That is, they treat the subject lines of their e-mail as an afterthought.
Big mistake. Your subject line is an opportunity. Like the headline of an article, its point is to persuade the reader to continue onward. Accordingly, make sure that your subject line does your body text justice.
9. Practice Full Disclosure
Someone’s paying you to talk with bloggers, a fact it behooves you to disclose. Some experts would advise you to begin your e-mail with something like, “Hi, I’m Jon Rick. I do online communications for the Department of Labor.” Others suggest that your signature block serve as your introduction.
Whatever you prefer, remember that not only is transparency important in itself. Transparency also breeds trust.
May 31st, 2011
Earlier this month, the Daily Beast broke the news that Facebook had hired a powerhouse PR agency to plant negative stories about Google in the press. The agency, Burson-Marstellar, deployed two of its big guns for the campaign: Former CNBC tech reporter Jim Goldman and former Hotline executive editor John Mercurio.
In one e-mail, Mercurio offered to help write and place an op-ed if the recipient, blogger Chris Soghoian, would lend his name to it. The savvy Soghoian asked who was bankrolling the campaign, and when Mercurio declined to say, Soghoian made the e-mails public.
What makes this incident interesting is that on one hand, Mercurio did many things right. He used a descriptive subject line: “Op-Ed Opportunity: Google Quietly Launches Sweeping Violation of User Privacy.” His first sentence succinctly and directly summarized the ask. He provided a list of talking points, each supported by a link to an independent sources. And his offer was tantalizing: Who in DC wouldn’t want a byline in the Washington Post?
On the other hand, Mercurio’s pitch suffered from fundamental flaws. He made no effort to connect with Soghoian. He employed the tone of a pitch rather than a conversation. And he refused to disclose his client—a fatal fuse that Soghoian knew to light.
Three minutes after he received the e-mail, Soghoian replied. “Who’s paying for this?” he asked.
The obvious lesson here is the “absolute importance” of transparency, as Burson later said in a statement. But what got lost in the ensuing brouhaha were the positive qualities of Mercurio’s pitch. How, then, do you build on Mercurio’s good practices while avoiding his bad ones?
Last week, I answered this question in a presentation to the DC chapter of the American Marketing Association. My title plays off Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, since the essence of my advice derives from Carnegie’s timeless guidelines.
Addendum (6/13/2011): Peter Himler adds two points worth quoting about Burson:
1. The firm likely was “blinded by the allure of an irresistible new and most notable client.”
2. “This gaffe was an agency aberration, not the standard practice.”
February 25th, 2009
In my first op-ed in a while, I answer this question today at PRWeek. Here’s the text:
Clients often ask, What is new media? To answer this, I like to step back and ask, What is public relations?
Public relations is the practice of improving public perception. In a word, it’s promotion. A corollary of this is strategizing: What media should you use to get your message out?
New media is simply one of these outlets; specifically—and appropriately—it’s the newest outlet. But instead of developing relationships with producers on TV and radio shows, or editors and reporters at newspapers and magazines, we new media folk work with online sources: bloggers, podcasters, Web masters, news aggregators.
Our old media colleagues spend their days on the phone with journalists, meeting them for coffee, drafting press releases, crafting pitches, and compiling media lists. In essence, we do the same thing, but with a different vocabulary and under different rules.
The first difference is that reporters report because it’s their job. By contrast, bloggers blog because it’s their hobby; it’s what they do for fun.
Second, whereas reporters carry business cards, have a business phone number, and are typically always accessible via BlackBerry, bloggers rarely list their phone numbers, let alone their addresses, and often work in the early morning or at night. In fact, many of Matt Drudge’s best sources—even his West Coast editor—never talk with him on the phone; their entire relationship revolves around e-mail.
Third, anything a reporter writes—even the idea to pursue a story—is signed-off and then vetted by at least one editor. By contrast, bloggers write what pops into their mind. Similarly, there are no officially observed rules regarding “off the record” or “on background.” Unlike Judy Miller, bloggers are not going to go to jail to protect you as a confidential source, and it’s as easy as copying and pasting for a blogger to publish what you thought was private correspondence.
Finally, while reporters have long relied on PR people, bloggers tend to be skeptical of us. The reason: While it’s common to spam a hundred reporters with a press release, this is a cardinal sin within the blogosphere. A press release clutters a blogger’s inbox, which, again, is personal rather than one his paycheck requires him to monitor. A release is usually irrelevant, and the lack of personalization, especially if he’s CCed, or worse, BCCed, is insulting.
In fact, if you send a high-profile blogger a press release, you may very well find your e-mail address being made public as a result—which, of course, subjects you to real spammers. What’s worse, they may threaten to blacklist members of your firm.
None of this is to paint bloggers with a bad brush. I think the world of these people, and, in fact, am one myself. But in order to get the results you want, it behooves you to treat bloggers on their terms, rather than your own.
January 24th, 2009
An e-mail I received a few days ago, which Gmail rightly filtered into my spam folder:
Hello,
I came across your Web site jonathanrick.com, and would like to propose a link exchange between your site and EnduranceWarrantyServices.com. Endurance Warranty Services is the leader in extended auto warranties serving car warranties, truck warranties, and all types of extended auto warranties.
Please consider adding our link to your site on your page: http://jonathanrick.com/2008/06/26/links-for-2008-06-27/
Here is our linking information:
Title: Car Warranty
Description: Endurance Warranty Services provides car warranties that are transferable! Car buyers look to make sure a car has a warranty.
URL: http://www.endurancewarrantyservices.com
HTML Code
<a href=”http://www.endurancewarrantyservices.com” target=”_blank”><b>Car Warranty</b></a> Endurance Warranty Services provides car warranties that are transferable! Car buyers look to make sure a car has a warranty.
Let us know when our link is placed and we will post your link in the proper category of the resources page listed here: http://www.endurancewarrantyservices.com/partners/index.html
Please be sure to include your desired title and description. Your link will be posted within hours, however, in some rare cases it may take longer. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you for your consideration,
[Name redacted]
linkmanager@endurancewarrantyservices.com
9831 E. Bell Road Suite 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Addendum (10/21/2009): Even though it’s 10 months late, in the interest of clarification, I am publishing the below e-mail that I received today from Endurance:
Hi, my name is Paul Chernawsky and I am the Vice President for Endurance Warranty Services. The following link refers to Endurance Warranty Services sending out e-mails for proposed link exchanges.
http://jonathanrick.com/2009/01/bad-pitches-endurance-warranty-services/
I first want to apologize for your inconvenience regarding the link exchange e-mail(s). Endurance Warranty Services had entered into a business agreement with a search engine optimization company and entrusted the search engine optimization company with optimizing Endurance Warranty Service’s Web site the right way.
Unfortunately, Endurance Warranty Services learned that the search engine optimization company was sending out mass e-mails proposing link exchanges that did Endurance Warranty Services way more harm than good. When Endurance realized this problem Endurance, terminated its relationship with the search engine optimization company immediately.
March 23rd, 2008
A version of this blog post appeared on Digital Flacking on March 23, 2008.
The below excerpts come from e-mails between Marshall Manson, of Edelman, and Rob Port of the Say Anything blog. They span a two-month period in 2006, though the first four selections all come from the same, original e-mail.
1. The intro (establish credibility and disclose who you are):
Rob: Hello. I hope you’re well. I just wanted to drop you a line and introduce myself. I’m a blogger myself (I contribute to Confirm Them and Human Events’ blogs among others), but for my day job—I do online public affairs for Wal-Mart, working with Mike Krempasky who runs Redstate.com.
2. The flattery (show familiarity with the blogger’s work):
Just wanted you to know that your post (http://sayanythingblog.com/2005/11/11/why-wal-mart-works/) taking notice of “Why Wal-Mart Works” was noticed here and at the corporate headquarters in Bentonville.
3. The FYI (connect your client’s interests to the blogger’s interests):
As you probably know, Washington-based union bosses have been running a campaign against Wal-Mart. And it’s always a challenge when opponents organize to attack corporations. The companies always seem to have one arm tied behind their backs when they try to respond, so it’s nice to see folks like you defending them when it’s the right thing to do.
4. The ask (intriguing but soft):
If you’re interested, I’d like to drop you the occasional update with some newsworthy info about the company and an occasional nugget that that you won’t hear about in the MSM. Let me know.
5. The caveat:
(BTW—I hate to ask, but if the temptation arises, please resist the urge to cut and paste text from this. Others have fallen into that trap, and I’d be sick if someone ripped you because they noticed a couple of bloggers with nearly identical posts.)
6. The follow-up (I’m here for you; don’t hesitate):
I’m looking forward to continuing to send little nuggets your way. And, as always, we want this to be a conversation. So your questions, suggestions and rants are always welcome and encouraged.
March 21st, 2008
A version of this blog post appeared on Digital Flacking (May 21, 2009) and TechRepublican (March 24, 2008).
Earlier this month, Kathryn Stetz of Qorvis Communications e-mailed TechCrunch, the world’s second most popular blog, asking to “order[] a reprint on an article” that appeared there.
The response, a couple weeks later, came from the blog’s founder and co-editor, Michael Arrington: “We’re a blog. We don’t do prints, let alone reprints.”
Oops. Or as former Qorvis staffer Jesse Thomas puts it, “Selling digital PR and not knowing that TechCrunch is a blog is definitely an embarrassment.”
Yet before we scapegoat Qorvis, it’s instructive to consider the context in which this snafu might have taken place.
First, I’d bet that Kathryn isn’t an account executive. People who exclude a title from their e-mail signature tend to be interns. Indeed, the task of requesting a reprint is one usually delegated to interns.
Second, the request to reprint is probably prudent. After all, reprints take place offline, and in the absence of a hyperlink, which is the conventional form of credit online, it’s worth asking if the blogger wishes to be cited in a particular way, or if he wants it noted that the material is copyrighted. (Indeed, one benefit of such a seemingly trivial request is that it establishes goodwill and opens the door for future pitching.)
Still, the fact remains that Qorvis screwed up: Bloggers should be treated with the same respect accorded to their old-media counterparts.
Of course, if such blunders can happen at a powerhouse firm like Qorivs, can’t they happen at your firm, too? In fact, it’s likely they already have.
Posted by Jonathan Rick in 
Before entering the digital space…
I flacked for the American Conservative Union and the Cato Institute, and reported for Time magazine and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.