Posts tagged as:

blogger outreach

Bloggers Are Promotional Partners, Which Is Bad For PR

by Stephanie Schwab · August 4, 2011

I’ve been ranting for some time about the disconnect between PR and social media, and particularly between PR and blogger outreach. In the evolution of social media, somehow blogger outreach became equated with public relations’ pitching to journalists, and so for years it’s been largely the domain of PR coordinators and account executives.

That’s seems wrong. I feel that PR should not be primarily responsible for blogger outreach. And likely not for other types of social media either.

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102 comments

That Website Ain’t Gonna Visit Itself

by Andrew Hanelly · June 28, 2011

If you build it, they will, well, probably go somewhere else.

Your target audience probably doesn’t share the same level of enthusiasm that you have toward your new website/redesign/mobile app/digital venture. More than likely, they won’t even notice. They’ll go about visiting their normal destinations online; checking Facebook, maybe Twitter, and dipping into their pool of RSS subscriptions.

But your target audience almost definitely won’t just come to your website because it happens to be there.

Launching your endeavor is a big first step. But it’s just the beginning of a long, long marathon.

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69 comments

What Motivates Bloggers?

by Stephanie Schwab · June 23, 2011

If you’re a public relations or communications person who works with bloggers, you’ve probably figured out by now that every blogger is unique. Pitching bloggers is not the same as pitching traditional journalists, because every blogger is motivated differently, whereas journalists are generally motivated to write because they’re being paid to do so and with a (usually) clear editorial direction.

Bloggers, on the other hand, work mainly for themselves. (For the purposes of this post, we’re talking about non-corporate bloggers – those that create and maintain blogs for their own personal use, or as a small business in and of itself.) So determining the motivation of an individual blogger is the key to pitching them successfully, because if you can address their needs, you can often get them to write about your product or service.

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15 comments

The Blogger’s Guide To PR’s Email Pitches

by Jason Falls · April 27, 2011

Public relations professionals responded en masse to last week’s post offering some guidelines for email pitching. My assertions that PR outreach via email is, indeed, a commercial communications and, thus, falls under the regulatory purview of the Federal Trade Commission and the CAN-SPAM Act was polarizing.

Many did not agree with my opinion that the CAN-SPAM Act also encompasses public relations communications, particularly when a PR person is reaching out to a media outlet or blogger to just establish that all-important relationship. Honestly, I do think there are a lot of gray areas here, but when it comes to following the letter of the law, can we really afford to play in an unclear pool?

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17 comments

The PR Guide To Email Pitching

by Jason Falls · April 18, 2011

I’ve always considered myself a public relations professional by trade. Even when the general perception of PR isn’t all that good, I still try to advocate for stronger ethics, better measures and more honorable tactics than those that give the industry an iffy reputation. But despite the last several years of trying to help many of my colleagues better understand that blasting and lists and impersonal communications is not only generally not effective but under certain conditions illegal, too many still don’t get it.

So let’s review … and this time pay attention:

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77 comments

BlogDash Launches, Offers Media Database Alternative For Blogger Outreach

by Jason Falls · February 3, 2011

BlogDash bills itself as the way media databases should work. The blogger outreach alternative to powerhouses like Cision, Vocus and Burrelles Luce moved out of private beta today. The tool evolved from Scribnia, a blog network site, in response to the ebb-and-flow world of blogger outreach which has, at times, gotten businesses and their public relations teams in trouble. BlogDash is now an option for PR folks looking for that magic bullet for effective blogger outreach.

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14 comments

How To Create A [Good] Blogger Pitch

by Stephanie Schwab · January 27, 2011

Because I work with a number of PR firms, and have worked for a PR agency in the past, I’m well aware of the difference in pitching bloggers vs. journalists.  The problem is, most PR people aren’t.  My blogger friends bitch and moan to me constantly about the bad pitches they get from PR people, and how many mass emails they receive.  But c’mon folks, it’s been years since this problem was identified and there have been lots of attempts to help PR people understand the difference.  Yet blogger outreach still seems to be a problem for most PR practitioners.

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54 comments

Social Media Does Not Equal PR

by Stephanie Schwab · December 7, 2010

Lately I’ve gotten involved in a number of discussions with public relations people who are trying to leverage social for their clients’ needs.  Some of these people are socially active, but not entirely socially savvy; I feel like I sound like a broken record when I use the words “engagement” and “sustained” and “slow build” over and over again to try and describe how social media works.  So I’ve put together a comparison to show some of the ways in which PR and social media are different … because they are.  Really different.

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65 comments

The Cautionary Tale Of Mom (And Other) Bloggers

by Jason Falls · October 20, 2010

Last month I was asked to speak at the Modern Media Man (M3) Summit, an event that was probably the first male-centric blogging and social media conference. When I was first asked to give a talk for what I thought of as BlogHer for men, I was specifically asked to talk about the role of blogs and bloggers in relation to brands and companies, to help educate bloggers in attendance about the world of brands, marketing and public relations and help bridge the gap between that world and that of bloggers who may or may not want to interact with companies.

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67 comments

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