November 12, 2009

Any marketer that’s been paying much attention of late knows that bloggers and other active social media folks can be great resources to help you promote your business, products, service or brand.

But, there’s a right way and wrong way to enlist blogger support, just like there’s always been a right way and a wrong way to attract the interest of any journalist capable of writing about your business.

In this piece I’ll give you my perspective as a blogger and marketer on what I think the right way is. I’ll also use this as a plea to all PR folks out there that haven’t figured out that blindly emailing bulk press releases to members of the media has never been an effective strategy. And blindly emailing 2000 word bulk press releases to members of the media is a really, really stupid waste of your client’s money. There, I feel better now.

So, what can you or the fledging PR intern do to get exposure from bloggers?

Consider these five tips.

1) Don’t target the usual suspects

Every start-up wants TechCrunch to write about them, but the competition is fierce. Better to drill down, do some research on sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and delicious and find some blogs you may have never heard of that are getting lots of mentions and action under the radar. Create a list of 25 of these kinds of blogs that might still be glad to hear some pitches and you might score better coverage.

2) Listen before you speak

Invest the time to read these new found blogs and pay attention to the comments, retweets and trackbacks. Subscribe to these blogs and track where these bloggers hang out by tracking their comments on other blogs through a tool like BackType. If you take the time to listen to what they like and don’t like, what else they read and promote, you might just be able to influence their entire network.

3) Hang out a bit

Since you’ve taken the time to subscribe to these new blogs, (and by the way, journalists at traditional publications like Business Week can be on this list too.) start participating in the conversation, get on their radars, make relevant comments. Resist at all costs the urge to promote yourself. Become a resource – do not puke up flattery – participate, comment on comments, tweet their posts if you like them, and use your knowledge to point out other related content.

4) Gift wrap your idea

• send a very brief note pointing out a story idea that would be a good fit for the blog’s reader (50 words – here’s a great idea) – ask if they want details
• respond with details but don’t write the post – give bullet points and links
• add another reason why it’s a timely/exclusive/trendy story idea
• position the idea as a tweet (120 characters or less)

5) Amplify for them

Once a blogger or tweeter covers your idea go to bat with all your might amplifying, tweeting, sharing and bookmarking the post or tweet. You will spread your story, show some appreciation, and probably stay on the short list for the next go around.

John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing.

Image credit: Amber Rhea

Join the conversation ( 4 )

• John Jantsch 2 years 2 months and 19 days ago

  

  Hey Jill - Girl's got to have a dream right? Trust is here to stay, it's just gotten easier to abuse.

• John Jantsch 2 years 2 months and 19 days ago

  

  @ TJ - you are so right, it's always been about relationships. This speed of ideas and surface relationship building that's possible with social media is causing some confusion about this concept, but it's really just common sense - marketing platforms may change, but fundamentals stay the same.

• Jill Fehrenbacher 2 years 2 months and 19 days ago

  

  Totally on point. Press releases have never worked and will never work. Blogging and social media are all about relationships; sending obviously impersonal messages en masse is obviously not the answer.
  
  My best stories comes from people I trust, and trust is earned via interaction and engagement. I can't wait for the day that the unwitting stop paying PR "experts" for worthless work and advice. Dream big.

• TJ McCue 2 years 2 months and 23 days ago

  

  Spot on, John, as always.
  
  It's about relationships, right? Forget all the other talk: It has always been about relationships. No one likes to be pitched from someone out of left field. The current frenzy of blogging, microblogging, fanning, tweeting, or whatever you're rolling today, has to be based in trust and transparency.
  
  That's what you're doing over at Duct Tape, right? Building relationships. That's what Chris Brogan is talking about. Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott, Anita Campbell and a whole host of others. Annette Tonti over at MoFuse just blogged at the Harvard Business Review blog about how the speed of thought is transferred almost as fast to others via Twitter. How do we keep up with that? By being honest and clear in how we do things. It isn't a new paradigm; it is an old one called the small world phenomenon. Or, maybe, the Cheers effect: Where everybody knows your name. But I'm preaching to the choir... :-)