Pitching Bloggers

Since I wrote my original post on PR and Blogging Outreach: 8 Practical Tips, I’ve noticed a deluge of postings by bloggers about how to pitch bloggers. I had been updating my original post with any posting that I came upon regarding this topic. I thought it would be more useful if I took that posting and made it a dedicated page. I will update the links here and provide any additional commentary. Please feel free to let me know if I’ve missed any postings and I’ll continue to add here.

* The Friendly Ghost’s: Post on Ghost Blogging: when the chips are down the balloon goes up and the lights go on. Discusses if ghost-writing a blog is advisable.

* Lifehacker’s guide to weblog comments. Great points about the do’s and don’ts of blog commenting.

* Micro Persuasion: Steve Rubel started a lively conversation with his post on The Future of PR is Participation: Not Pitching  Can PR go beyond pitching and understand how to leverage social media?

* B.L. Ochman’s WhatNextBlog: She posted her MaketingSherpa article on How to Pitch Me – and Other Bloggers – with PR. On October 22, B.L highlighted a good pitch and more pointers for bad pitches.

* Lee Odden’s Online Marketing Blog discusses How NOT to pitch a blogger

* In the August 27 PR Week, Renee Blodgett of Blodgett Communications was quoted, “Most start ups know to use blogs to clarify information about their brand and to correct inaccuracies. The PR industry should not be intimidated by the medium that is really an extension of basic PR strategy.” Um – maybe they just need to now how to reach out to bloggers…

* Jeremiah Owyang of “Web Strategy by Jeremiah”: Jeremiah provides his thoughts on this topic in his post on “How PR professionals should pitch bloggers.” Jeremiah states, “Always remember that I’m thinking of my readers first, so if the content is not going to help them, I’m not going to point to it –think backwards.” As I read all of these articles, it’s amazing that there are common threads throughout. Let’s see if my fellow colleagues can truly heed the advice that these handful of bloggers provide.

* Rohit Bhargava of Influential Marketing Blog: Wow, the postings just keep on coming. This posting is from the Ogilvy Digital team and is “[their] first stab at creating something transparent that could rebuild some credibility in the eyes of bloggers who have had to hear too many clueless pitches from inexperienced PR and marketing folks.” Check out The Ogilvy Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics (Beta Version). And why is everything a beta now?

* PR Squared: Interesting lesson of full disclosure, especially when paying bloggers for posts. According to the post, the issue resulted from a” marketing manager – operating within one of the many vacuums that form in big companies – executing not-so-well on what was essentially a good idea.”  I don’t know about you, but I would hope a marketing manager would know better…

* CK’s Blog: CK created her 10 rules in response to the numerous pitches that were “deplorable.” I especially like points 3 and 5 =)

* Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail: Unless your head was in the sand, you probably either saw this article or it was sent to you. Prominent author, editor and blogger, Chris finally got fed up and blocked some PR folks, with aftermath discussion. Definite thing to be aware of…

* Adaptive Blue Blog: Though this post focuses on larger PR Strategy, I thought it was insightful for anyone looking to develop a strategy for mainstream and blogger outreach. I disagree with his assessment on the value of press releases but interesting information nonetheless.

* The Viral Garden: Mack Collier highlights a great example of how to pitch a blogger. Not necessarily tips but goo example nonetheless.

* Adland’s Tips for PR: Though not directly at “bloggers,” there are definite tips for everyone from Dabitch at Adland.  Point 2 reminds me of previous posting.

* MarketingSherpa’s Blogging Tips: It’s a general tip sheet for those just starting to pitch bloggers. Like most MarketingSherpa articles, this will probably be openly available until Feb 22 and then available to subscribers only.

* Converation Agent: Valerie Maltoni provides her top tips for how to pitch and not pitch her.

* Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing: Cory raises some practical tips for making it easy for bloggers to find, use and share your information. Definitely raises some points that I wouldn’t have thought of previously.

* Chris Brogan: Great blog about all things PR and social media. He writes a post about what makes a blogger different from journalists and how to pitch him. Key takeawy– make a blogger feel special, whether with beta invitations, previews or free schwag.

* Jason Falls: Jason is a lovable guy who really understands social media. In this post, Jason provides helpful tips on how he would write a pitch to a blogger. He even provides a sample pitch and explains the anatomy of the pitch.

* Toby Bloomberg’s Diva Marketing Blog: Toby’s pretty clear with her blog post title “Blogger Relations: I don’t need a new best friend.” Need I say anything else?

* Dave Fleet.com: Dave is a prolific writer who is starting to climb the rankings as a smart PR blogger. Here are his 5 Tips for Pitching Him.