Communication Overtones Comments
Thanks for your post Kami, very helpful indeed. Another helpful tip to add is that bloggers exist in a community--avoid mass pitching. This is simply good PR practice but is especially helpful when reaching out to bloggers. You have to be a resource, not a nusance.
Absolutely Chris, I like that view of being a resource, it puts one in the right frame of mind for how to be successful at this stuff.
Umm... maybe PRs are starting to treat bloggers as members of the media because for ages now bloggers have been bitching and moaning about not being treated that way. If even the CIA considers bloggers journalists (old news), then why shouldn't PRs?
I used to work for two of the largest content networks (each with hundreds of bloggers), and most of them would give a limb to be treated like a journalist (pitched news stories instead of having to dig for them after the fact, contacted by PR and marketing folks about interviews and review materials, etc.).
Any blogger worth their salt knows it's important to break stories and not just rehash them after conventional media covers them... all of the biggest ones do it from time to time, and frankly that makes them journalists.
As far as Twitter, I'm still amazed that the PR community takes it seriously when many of the best have known for ages that it amounts to little more than additional blog clutter.
As for Facebook and their own blogs, that's a nice idea, but it's counter-productive when you're trying to reach serious bloggers who actually do care about breaking a news story. If you've already published it, you very often hurt your chances with those bigger blogs instead of helping your cause (unless your news is so important that they couldn't possibly ignore it - ex. just about anything out of the mouth of Google).
You can't lump bloggers into one collective group. Personal bloggers have a right to expect they won't be hounded with news. Industry / niche bloggers who have, in the past, worked to cover news topics do not. If you don't want to receive pitches, make it clear on your contact page, or somewhere on your blog where it can't be missed.
Jennifer; There is a lot packed into your response, but one of the thing that resonated for me was, "You can't lump bloggers into one collective group." On this I can agree with you completely. Actually, the complaint of some bloggers is the same complaint by mainstream media, "stop spamming us with your off-topic 'one-size-fits all' press releases and pitches."
So, it's not so much the age-old argument of "are bloggers journalists" but the even older problem of PR practitioners being extremely lazy. But now they are using the same tactics with bloggers, who can feel free to blog about these annoyances to their hearts content.
My take. If you want a blogger to do something for you (cover you or your client) than you better give them the information they need in the format that they want. "How can you possibly know that you ask?"
Easy, get to know them and ask them.
Haven't the best PR agencies and superstars always been the ones with the best relationships?
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